Gunfire heard at Ivory Coast military headquarters

Gunfire broke out on Friday at Ivory Coast’s military headquarters in Abidjan, second city Bouake to protest a deal over bonus payments that their colleagues made with the government in the commercial capital Abidjan, witnesses said.

The protest comes a day after a spokesman for soldiers said that talks with President Alassane Ouattara had led them to drop their demands for further bonus payments.

President Ouattara praised them saying they would now be “exemplary soldiers”.

In January, former rebels integrated into army ranks staged a mutiny that paralysed activity in several towns.

Clashes that followed claimed four lives in the political capital Yamoussoukro. The government has refused to give details of the negotiations.

Meanwhile, Gunfire also erupted in the northern town of Odienne on Friday, a local resident said.

Many of the men involved in the mutiny fought for Ouattara during the decade long Ivorian civil war that left more than 3,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands displaced.

Reuters