{"id":34563,"date":"2017-05-15T09:43:42","date_gmt":"2017-05-15T09:43:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/ivory-coast-launches-military-operation-to-quash\/"},"modified":"2017-05-15T09:43:39","modified_gmt":"2017-05-15T09:43:39","slug":"ivory-coast-launches-military-operation-to-quash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/ivory-coast-launches-military-operation-to-quash\/","title":{"rendered":"Ivory Coast launches military operation to quash mutiny"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Loyalist troops advance on Bouake after soldiers mutinying over pay refuse army demand to lay down arms.}<\/p>\n

Ivory Coast has launched a military operation “to re-establish order” after soldiers who staged a three-day mutiny over bonus payments refused the army’s demand to disarm.<\/p>\n

The mutineers, most of them former rebel fighters who fought to bring President Alassane Ouattara to power, have sealed off Ivory Coast’s second-largest city, Bouake, and used gunfire to break up protests against the revolt.<\/p>\n

As loyalist soldiers advanced on Bouake on Sunday, the Military Chief of Staff General Sekou Toure issued a statement announcing the new offensive.<\/p>\n

“These acts of an extreme seriousness are contrary to the mission of protection assigned to the armed forces,” the statement said. “As a result, a military operation is under way to re-establish order.”<\/p>\n

Six people were wounded by gunfire on Sunday, and one of three protesters shot and wounded on Saturday died of his wounds. <\/p>\n

The mutineers said they would not surrender. <\/p>\n

“They asked us to lay down our arms and surrender. We refused and demand our money … We are waiting for them,” Sergeant Seydou Kone told the Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n

The soldiers’ uprising began in Bouake on Friday when a spokesman for the group dropped demands for extra pay promised by the government during negotiations to end a previous mutiny in January. <\/p>\n

The 8,400 mutineers received 5m CFA francs ($8,370) each at the time, and were due to get the rest of the sum this month. But the government has struggled to make the payment, with a budget hit by the collapse in the price of cocoa, Ivory Coast’s main export.<\/p>\n

The defence minister has vowed not to re-negotiate with the renegade troops, and public anger at the mutineers is growing.<\/p>\n

Protests against the mutiny took place in Abidjan, the northern city of Korhogo and western cocoa hub of Daola on Saturday.<\/p>\n

On Sunday morning, the soldiers used gunfire to break up a march in Bouake’s city centre, wounding six people.<\/p>\n

“The population rose up, but the mutineers quickly dispersed the march with shots,” said Bouake resident Simon Guede. “Everything is closed.”<\/p>\n

The Ivorian army, which consists of about 22,000 soldiers, includes many former rebels who were integrated into the armed forces after years of conflict.<\/p>\n

Ivory Coast was plunged into civil war in 2002 following a failed attempt to oust then-president Laurent Gbagbo.<\/p>\n

The revolt sliced the former French colony into the rebel-held north and the government-controlled south and triggered years of unrest, which ended when Gbago was forcibly removed from office in 2011.<\/p>\n

\"Mutinous<\/figure>\n

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

{Loyalist troops advance on Bouake after soldiers mutinying over pay refuse army demand to lay down arms.} Ivory Coast has launched a military operation “to re-establish order” after soldiers who staged a three-day mutiny over bonus payments refused the army’s demand to disarm. The mutineers, most of them former rebel fighters who fought to bring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-34563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34563\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34563"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=34563"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=34563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}