{"id":319299,"date":"2017-05-15T10:24:30","date_gmt":"2017-05-15T10:24:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=319299"},"modified":"2017-05-15T10:24:30","modified_gmt":"2017-05-15T10:24:30","slug":"ivory-coast-mutiny-shooting-in-abidjan-and-bouake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=319299","title":{"rendered":"Ivory Coast mutiny: Shooting in Abidjan and Bouak\u00e9"},"content":{"rendered":"

Heavy gunfire has erupted in Ivory Coast’s two biggest cities, as a mutiny in the army enters its fourth day.<\/p>\n

The mutineers blocked roads outside a barracks in an affluent neighbourhood of Abidjan, the commercial capital, a BBC reporter in the city says.<\/p>\n

Troops loyal to the government are heading for the second city, Bouak\u00e9, where shooting has also been heard.<\/p>\n

Armed forces’ chief of staff General S\u00e9kou Tour\u00e9 has vowed to end the mutiny, triggered by a pay dispute.<\/p>\n

In a statement on Sunday, Gen Tour\u00e9 said that many of the mutinous soldiers had listened to earlier calls for them to stand down.<\/p>\n

But the operation had been launched because some soldiers were continuing to disobey orders, he added.<\/p>\n

The mutineers have vowed to fight back, if loyalist troops intervene.<\/p>\n

Gunfire has been heard at the Akou\u00e9do barracks, in a suburb where many middle-class Ivorians and expats live, the BBC’s Tamasin Ford in Abidjan says<\/p>\n

The government is running short of money because of plummeting cocoa prices, making it difficult for it to meet the demands of the mutineers, our reporter adds.<\/p>\n

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This has raised fears of a resurgence of the violence seen during Ivory Coast’s 10-year civil war, which ended in 2011.<\/p>\n

Many of the mutineers in January are former rebels who joined the army after the conflict.<\/p>\n

They had helped President Alassane Ouattara take office in 2010 after his predecessor Laurent Gbagbo refused to accept defeat in elections.<\/p>\n

They first launched a munity in January and forced the government to pay them about $8,000 (\u00a36,200) each in bonuses which they said was owed to them.<\/p>\n

They were due to receive a further payment this month and several thousand mutineers were unhappy they were not consulted when on Thursday, a spokesman for the group said they would drop their demands for the remaining money.<\/p>\n

The government has said it will not negotiate with the disgruntled soldiers.<\/p>\n

Ivory Coast is the world’s biggest cocoa producer, and it is the West African state’s main foreign currency earner.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Heavy gunfire has erupted in Ivory Coast’s two biggest cities, as a mutiny in the army enters its fourth day. The mutineers blocked roads outside a barracks in an affluent neighbourhood of Abidjan, the commercial capital, a BBC reporter in the city says. Troops loyal to the government are heading for the second city, Bouak\u00e9, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[241],"class_list":["post-319299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international","tag-ivory-coast"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=319299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319299\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=319299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=319299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=319299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}