Heavy gunfire erupted on Monday in Cote d’Ivoire’s two largest cities of Abidjan and Bouake as the military aimed to contain a four-day nationwide army mutiny over bonus payments, witnesses said.
Shops remained closed and more than 200 commercial trucks were stranded on the roadside after mutinous soldiers sealed off the southern entrance to Bouake, the epicentre of the revolt, on Monday, Reuters witnesses said.
The soldiers staged the revolt after bonus payments promised by the government after a mutiny in January were delayed following the collapse in the price of cocoa, Cote d’Ivoire’s main export.
Cote d’Ivoire has been touted as a post-war success story because it emerged from a 2002-2011 political crisis as one of the world’s fastest growing economies under President Alassane Ouattara.
But it remains divided and a wave of mutinies that began earlier this year has exposed the lack of unity in a military assembled from former rebel and loyalist combatants.