Ivory Coast
defence minister has explained why some soldiers mutinied in the country’s
second largest city of Bouake.
Alain-Richard
Donwahi said the mutiny was the handiwork of disgruntled soldiers demanding
salary increases and the payment of bonuses.
In a
statement read out on state-owned
television, he said the group of
soldiers had used their weapons to force their way into the military
headquarters in Bouake soon after midnight and then made their demands.
“All
soldiers are asked to remain calm and return to barracks so that lasting
solutions can be found,” it said.
Heavy
gunfire was heard from around 2 a.m. (0200 GMT) in Bouake – a city of around a
half million inhabitants in the centre of Ivory Coast – and sporadic shooting
continued into the late morning.
Bouake was
the seat of a rebellion that controlled the northern half of the country from
2002 until Ivory Coast was reunited following a civil war in 2011.
Shooting
also broke out mid-morning at a military base in Daloa, the main trading hub in
the western cocoa belt, and residents said soldiers, some of them masked, were
patrolling the streets in 4x4s.
Cocoa prices
rose as the unrest prompted a wave of buying.
Ivory Coast
– French-speaking West Africa’s largest economy – has emerged from a 2002-2011
political crisis as one of the continent’s rising economic stars.
However, the
army, thrown together at the end of the conflict from a mixture of former rebel
factions and government soldiers remains an unruly force riddled with internal
divisions.
Military
sources had said demobilised combatants – mainly former rebels from the
decade-long conflict – were behind the uprising, during which weapons were
looted from Bouake’s police stations. But authorities and a lawmaker later
blamed soldiers on active duty.
“None of
them are demobilised fighters,” said Bema Fofana, a member of parliament
representing Bouake who spoke to several of the soldiers. “There are fewer than
200 of them that I saw.”
Fofana said
the soldiers had said they were demanding 5 million CFA francs ($8,000) each,
as well as a house.
“ON ALERT”
The soldiers
set up positions at entry points into the city and blocked at least one road.
Footage from state-owned RTI television showed a pick-up truck laden with
soldiers racing through mostly empty streets.
A
helicopter, which residents said was from Ivory Coast’s U.N. peacekeeping
mission, buzzed overhead.
An army
officer who was not part of the mutiny said there were many rebel soldiers at
the north and south entrances to the city. “We are on alert and await
instructions from the hierarchy,” he said by telephone from Bouake.
He added
that the mutineers had taken the second in command at Bouake’s main military
base hostage.
Residents
stayed home and businesses remained closed.
“The city is
deserted,” said Ami Soro, a teacher living in Bouake. “Men in balaclavas are
patrolling the city on motorcycles or in cars. They aren’t attacking residents
… They told us to stay at home.”
An officer
at Ivory Coast’s military headquarters in the commercial capital Abidjan said
reinforcements had been sent, adding: “The situation remains unstable and
serious in Bouake.”
A similar
uprising occurred in 2014, when hundreds of soldiers barricaded roads in
several cities and towns across the country demanding payment of back wages.
The
government agreed a financial settlement with the soldiers, who returned to
barracks, possibly emboldened to try their luck again later.
*Source:
Reuters
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