A mutiny by Ivory Coast soldiers appears to have spread to the country’s commercial capital of Abidjan, following demands made by military personnel for higher wages.
Gunfire was reported inside a base for elite troops in the city just hours after the mutiny began in Bouake and began to spread elsewhere, Reuters news agency reported.
The uprising began early on Friday when the soldiers seized Bouake, the second-largest city in the west-African nation.
Unrest spread to at least four other cities and towns in the same day, it was reported, while the government sought to meet the rebels for talks.
The defence minister is said to have travelled to Bouake to discuss the group’s demands, while loyalist troops have sought to reinforce security in Abidjan.
An Ivory Coast MP said that soldiers involved in the clash had made demands of $8,000 and a house each, according to the BBC.
Heavy gunfire was heard during the night in the northern city of Korhogo and early on Saturday in Bouake.
Residents and soldiers later reported shooting in Man, Toulepleu and at a major military camp in Abidjan, where the president, administration and parliament are based.
“Shooting has started in our camp too now,” said one soldier at the Akouedo military base, located in a residential section of Abidjan. The gunfire was confirmed by a local resident.
A diplomatic source said armed dissident soldiers – some of whom blackened their faces with ashes or wore scarves around their heads – blocked a main road near the camp and threatened people in passing cars.
Abidjan residents, meanwhile, rushed to supermarkets to buy up bottled water and other provisions, fearing violence could eventually paralyse the city.
Ivory Coast, which emerged from a 10-year civil war in 2011, now has West Africa's largest economy.
However, years of conflict and a failure to reform its army, thrown together from a patchwork of former rebel fighters and government soldiers, have left it with an unruly military force stunted by internal divisions.
A Reuters reporter in Bouake, who met some of the mutineers, said they were composed of low-ranking soldiers but also included some demobilised 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.
The rogue soldiers remained on the streets of Bouake on Saturday despite pledges made to local officials seeking to mediate late on Friday that they would return to barracks.
“They are maintaining their positions. They are still at the entrances to the city and at the central roundabout,” a local journalist told Reuters
Troop reinforcements were sent towards Bouake after word of the revolt reached the army headquarters in Abidjan, creating a standoff with renegade soldiers holding positions at the entrance to the city.
Soldiers from the country’s UN peacekeeping mission were also blocked on the outskirts of Bouake on Saturday after mutineers refused to allow them to enter.
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 was due to travel to Bouake on Saturday to speak directly with the mutineers.
During a similar uprising in 2014, when hundreds of soldiers barricaded roads in cities across Ivory Coast demanding back pay, the government agreed a financial settlement.
President Alassane Ouattara, who convened an emergency meeting with Donwahi and top military officers late on Friday to discuss the revolt, travelled to neighbouring Ghana for the swearing in of its new president. He was due to return to Abidjan late on Friday afternoon for a special cabinet meeting.
Additional reporting by Reuters
