{"id":34596,"date":"2017-05-16T15:54:15","date_gmt":"2017-05-16T15:54:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/ivory-coast-mutiny-soldiers-agree-deal-with\/"},"modified":"2017-05-16T15:54:12","modified_gmt":"2017-05-16T15:54:12","slug":"ivory-coast-mutiny-soldiers-agree-deal-with","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/ivory-coast-mutiny-soldiers-agree-deal-with\/","title":{"rendered":"Ivory Coast mutiny: Soldiers agree deal with government"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Soldiers in Ivory Coast have accepted a deal to end a five-day mutiny over pay.
\nThe government offered the mutineers an immediate bonus payment of five million CFA francs (\u00a36500; $8,400) for the 8,400 mutineers and a further two million CFA francs at the end of June.}<\/p>\n

They had previously rejected a settlement put forward by the government on Monday night.<\/p>\n

Since Friday soldiers have been shooting in the air and setting up road blocks.<\/p>\n

One person was killed by a stray bullet on Sunday after mutinous troops seized control of Bouak\u00e9, the country’s second largest city.<\/p>\n

The BBC’s Tamasin Ford reports from the commercial capital, Abidjan, that soldiers had been terrifying residents in major cities around the country over the last few days.<\/p>\n

The former rebels, now embedded in the army, who fought for years to get President Alassane Ouattara to power, were angry at the scrapping of a deal agreed in January to give them back pay and bonuses.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday the government finally gave in, giving them exactly what they want, our correspondent reports.<\/p>\n

The mutineers helped the president take office in 2011. The former rebels make up about 8,400 of Ivory Coast’s 22,000-strong army.<\/p>\n

Pro-government forces had backed off from advancing towards Bouak\u00e9, the epicentre of the mutiny, apparently because they want to avoid a fight, our correspondent adds.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, armed forces’ chief of staff General S\u00e9kou Tour\u00e9 vowed to end the mutiny, but the mutineers said they would fight back if loyalist troops intervened.<\/p>\n

Mutineers at the army headquarters in Abidjan’s financial district, near the presidential palace, had been shooting in the air, forcing schools and offices to shut.<\/p>\n

Gunfire was also heard at the Akouedo barracks, in a suburb where many middle-class Ivorians and expats live.<\/p>\n

Pro-government forces responded by closing roads in the city, while French troops were deployed to guard French-owned transport firm Bollore, a major investor in Ivory Coast.<\/p>\n

Other areas hit by unrest included San Pedro, the biggest cocoa exporting city in the world, and Daloa, a major trading hub in Ivory Coast’s cocoa belt.<\/p>\n

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

Pro-Ouattara forces from Bouak\u00e9 swept into Abidjan at the time, helping Mr Ouattara take office after his predecessor Laurent Gbagbo refused to accept defeat in elections.<\/p>\n

Many of the rebels were rewarded for their backing by being given jobs in the army.<\/p>\n

\"Soldiers<\/figure>\n

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

{Soldiers in Ivory Coast have accepted a deal to end a five-day mutiny over pay. The government offered the mutineers an immediate bonus payment of five million CFA francs (\u00a36500; $8,400) for the 8,400 mutineers and a further two million CFA francs at the end of June.} They had previously rejected a settlement put forward […]<\/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":[160],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-34596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-theophile-niyitegeka"],"bylines":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","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":3}],"contributors":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","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":3}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34596","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=34596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34596"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=34596"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=34596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}