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Ivory Coast

The men wear roughly improvised balaclavas, some plain black, others patterned with skulls and crossbones. One is clad in a heavy-duty jacket that bears the circular logo of CND. They have fashioned a checkpoint out of battered car doors lined up across the road.

This is the gateway to the "autonomous republic of Abobo", usually one of the most populated suburbs of Ivory Coast's commercial capital, Abidjan. It has in effect declared independence from the disputed presidency of Laurent Gbagbo. Now a lawless place of terror, bloodshed and desperation, it typifies the slow-motion implosion of a country into a failed state.

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