15th May, 2017
Ivory Coast authorities will maintain a “firm line” faced with a four-day nationwide army mutiny, government spokesman Bruno Kone said on Monday, as the revolt spread, paralyaing much of the West African cocoa grower.
“The government has taken a firm line and it will maintain this line,” he told Reuters, adding that, while no negotiations were under way with the soldiers, “discussions were continuing” even as a military operation against them was ongoing.
NAN reports that heavy gunfire again erupted on Monday in Ivory Coast’s two largest cities, Abidjan and Bouake, witnesses said, as the military pressed an operation aimed at ending a four-day nationwide army mutiny over bonus payments.
Loyalist troops began advancing towards Bouake, the epicenter of the revolt, on Sunday and sporadic gunfire was heard overnight there as well as at military camps in Abidjan. Shooting in both cities intensified before dawn.
Heavy shooting was also heard in Daloa, a hub for the western cocoa growing regions, on Monday.
“I’ve been hearing the sound of Kalashnikovs and a heavier weapon. That began at around 5 a.m. (0500 GMT)
“It’s intense,” said one Abidjan resident, who lives near the U.S. Embassy and the presidential residence.
Another Abidjan resident said mutinying soldiers came out of the West African nation’s largest military camp and erected barricades, blocking traffic along one of the main thoroughfares in the east of the city.
“There was heavy shooting at the northern entrance to the city and in the city center.
“It’s calmed a bit but we’re still hearing gunfire,” said one Bouake resident.
A second resident confirmed the shooting.
NAN reports that mutinous soldiers shot three people on Saturday and cut off access to the second largest city, Bouake, as a revolt escalated over demands for bonus payments.
The revolt began in Bouake early on Friday before spreading quickly, following a similar pattern to a mutiny by the same group in January that paralysed parts of Ivory Coast and marred its image as a post-war success story.
Mutineers seized control of the national military headquarters and defence ministry in the centre of the commercial capital Abidjan on Friday.
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They stepped up the pressure on Saturday, blocking roads out of Bouake, the epicentre of January’s uprising, and protesting around the country, including the northern city of Korhogo, where two men on a motorcycle were shot in the legs as they tried to get through a roadblock manned by the mutineers.
“They shot at them. They were wounded and transported to the hospital,” said witness Amadou Yeo.
In Bouake, soldiers fired on a group of demobilised former rebels seriously wounding one of them, according to their spokesman and a local lawmaker.
Sgt. Seydou Kone, a spokesman for the mutineers, said the ex-fighters, who went through a disarmament programme following the country’s 2011 civil war, were planning their own protest, as they did early this week, and his men had opened fire to stop them.
“We do not want to negotiate with anyone,” said Kone by phone from Bouake in the centre of the country. “We’re also ready to fight if we are attacked.
“We have nothing to lose.”