At least five people were killed on Sunday when heavily-armed gunmen opened fire in the Ivory Coast resort town of Grand-Bassam, leaving bodies strewn on the beach.
"At the moment there are five dead," a military source said on condition of anonymity after the assault in the resort popular with Westerners.
An AFP photographer said he saw seven bodies on the beach and another in the Etoile du Sud (Southern Star) hotel, one of the establishments that came under attack in the country's former French colonial capital.
The assailants, who were "heavily armed and wearing balaclavas, fired at guests at the L'Etoile du Sud, a large hotel which was full of expats in the current heatwave," one witness told AFP.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the shooting in the resort, which lies on the Gulf of Guinea around 40 kilometres (25 miles) east of the commercial hub Abidjan.
Another witness told AFP: "The shots took us by surprise and now we are staying holed up."
A crowd of several hundred people had gathered at the entrance to Grand-Bassam's French quarter at the edge of the old town, where a dozen ambulances were on standby.
An AFP journalist saw around a dozen people, including an injured Western woman, being evacuated in a military truck.
Military vehicles carrying heavy machine guns were also heading to the scene, along with armed traditional hunters known as Dozo.
Home to some 80,000 people, Grand-Bassam holds UNESCO World Heritage status thanks to its elegant colonial-era facades. The town has several hotels frequented by expatriates.
UNESCO describes Grand-Bassam as a late 19th and early 20th century colonial town that "bears witness to the complex social relations between Europeans and Africans, and to the subsequent independence movement".
"As a vibrant
centre of the territory of French trading posts in the Gulf of Guinea,
which preceded modern Cote d'Ivoire, it attracted populations from all
parts of Africa, Europe and the Mediterranean Levant," the UN cultural
agency says on its website.
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