In Pictures: Standoff in Ivory Coast intensifies

Tensions are high in Ivory Coast after President Alassane Ouattara was re-elected on Tuesday, with more than 40 people killed in clashes since August when he first announced he would run for a disputed third term.

Two supporters of an Ivory Coast minister were killed in a clash near his home in the central town of Toumodi, a ruling party official said on Wednesday.

“Two young people from the minister’s entourage who wanted to help the minister’s brother were shot dead” on Tuesday night, Ouattara’s RHDP party spokesman Mamadou Toure said.

The clash happened near the home of Minister of Equipment and Road Maintenance Amede Koffi Kouakou in Toumodi, where four people were killed at the weekend when houses were set ablaze during clashes there.

The party official also said the convoy of Communication Minister Sidi Tiemoko Toure had come under fire in the centre of the country, but there were no casualties.

Meanwhile, security forces have surrounded the homes of opposition leaders after they rejected the election of Ouattara and promised to set up a rival “transitional government”.

Police have blocked access to the residences of Ouattara’s main adversaries, Henri Konan Bedie and Pascal Affi N’Guessan, after officials accused the opposition of plotting an act of sedition.

They say Ouattara’s third term breaches the country’s two-term presidential limit, but the Ivorian leader contends that a 2016 reform allowed him to run again by resetting term limits.

The crisis has stoked fears the West African state could slide into the kind of violence that killed 3,000 people a decade ago when then-President Laurent Gbagbo refused to accept defeat by Ouattara.