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| Soldiers |
Heavy gunfire was
heard overnight and early on Saturday near military camps in two cities in
Ivory Coast, where disgruntled soldiers launched revolts a day earlier over
salaries and bonuses, residents and a soldier said.
Shooting began at
around 6 a.m. (0600 GMT) in Bouake, the West African nation's second-largest
city of around half a million inhabitants. Residents also reported hearing
shooting throughout the night at an army base in the northern city of Korhogo.
"The shooting
is very heavy right now at the 3rd Battalion. I'm nearby and I hear it like it
was right next to us," Bouake resident Konan Benoit told Reuters by
telephone as gunfire could be heard on the line.
Zie Silue, who lives
in Korhogo, said the gunfire there had stopped by the early morning.
"It's calm now,
but residents are being careful. There's practically no traffic. Shops are
closed," he said.
Ivory Coast -
French-speaking West Africa's largest economy - has emerged from a 2002-11
political crisis as one of the continent's rising economic stars.
However, the years
of conflict and a failure to reform its army, thrown together from a mixture of
former rebel fighters and government soldiers, have left it with an unruly
force hobbled by internal divisions.
Renegade soldiers
seized Bouake early on Friday after taking up positions at key entry points,
beginning a standoff with troop reinforcements sent there after word of the
revolt reached the army headquarters in the commercial capital Abidjan.
It was not immediately
clear what provoked the gunfire in the two cities, but a member of the uprising
said soldiers in Bouake had seen what they considered suspicious movements
outside the camp.
"This is
gunfire (by the renegades) to discourage them," he said.
While the shooting
later died down, intermittent bursts of gunfire continued.
A Reuters reporter,
who entered Bouake late on Friday and met some of the mutineers, said they were
composed of low-ranking soldiers but also included some demobilized combatants.
Nearly all appeared
to be former members of the New Forces rebellion, which had used Bouake as its
de facto capital and controlled the northern half of Ivory Coast from 2002
until the country was reunited following a 2011 civil war.
Defence Minister
Alain-Richard Donwahi in a statement late on Friday called for calm and said
the government was prepared to listen to the soldiers' grievances after the
uprising spread to other cities including Daloa, Daoukro and Odienne.
Calling the revolt
"understandable but deplorable for the image of the country", he said
he would travel to Bouake on Saturday to speak directly with the mutineers.
Bema Fofana, a
parliament member representing Bouake, said the soldiers had agreed in a
meeting late on Friday to return to barracks from 6 a.m. on Saturday. But a
local journalist in Bouake said that, hours later, the situation on the streets
had not changed.
"They are
maintaining their positions. They are still at the entrances to the city and at
the central roundabout," the journalist said, asking that his name not be
used due to fear of reprisal.
REUTERS
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