Unidentified assailants armed with guns and machetes stormed a village in western Cote d'Ivoire Wednesday, killing at least 41 people and injuring more than 60 others, an army spokesman said.

The attack took place before dawn when villagers were asleep ina village near the town of Duekoue, located in a government-controlled area and 400 km northwest of Abidjan, Lieutenant Colonel Jules Yao Yao said in a statement.

More than 30 huts were set on fire and some of the victims locked in their homes and burned alive, he said, citing witnesses.

The spokesman condemned this brutal incident and called on citizens to eliminate hostility and differences.

"No killing, no matter what the reason or motive, is tolerable in a society that aspires to live according to the norms of a state of rights, one that's civilized," he said.

Yao Yao urged the United Nations peacekeepers and French troops to strengthen control on a no-weapons buffer zone, also known as the confidence zone, saying the government forces had taken measures to prevent fresh violent attacks.

There are some 6,000 UN peacekeepers and 4,000 French troops patrolling the confidence zone between the rebel-held north and government-controlled south.

Duekoue, located at the heart of a rich western cocoa-growing region, has experienced a lot of violence.

For the past two years, local residents frequently clashed with immigrants from northern Cote d'Ivoire and neighboring countries. Officials said that only in a four-day span late April, some 30 people were killed in the clashes.

Cote d'Ivoire, the world's leading cocoa producer, has been split between the north, held by the rebels, and the south, under the control of government forces, since a coup attempt against President Laurent Gbagbo failed in September 2002.

(Xinhua News Agency June 2, 2005)