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Fighting on

10 Chechnya

NEAR GOISKOYE, (Russia),: Fighting continued in southern Chechnya overnight to Thursday, ending hopes for Russian President Boris Yeltsin's declared unilateral ceasefire in the breakaway republic. Goiskoye, a rebel stronghold that enjoyed two days of quiet after the ceasefire, was engulfed in smoke and the sounds of heavy small arms fire and mortar shelling toward sunset Wednesday.

The sound of artillery fire continued in the area throughout the night.

Yeltsin declared the ceasefire Sunday in a televised address, but fighting continued after a brief lull.

More than 30,000 people, mostly civilians, have died in the conflict since Russian troops poured into the mainly Muslim republic in December 1994 to crush separatist leader Dzhokhar Dudayev's independence drive.-AFP