BOUAKE, Ivory Coast: Ivory Coast soldiers returned to their barracks yesterday after protests over a pay dispute in several cities that saw them storm a TV station and set up barricades, soldiers and residents said.
The west African nation’s defence and interior ministers promised measures aimed at meeting the soldiers’ demands, and talks were set for later Wednesday between government officials and military representatives.
Tuesday’s protests sparked deep concern in the world’s largest cocoa exporter three years after the end of a long crisis that for a period split the country in two.
“Calm has returned in the barracks and throughout the country,” a military officer said on condition of anonymity.
“The protesters are waiting for the result of the meeting” set for Wednesday afternoon.
Waves of protests involving hundreds of soldiers began in the second-largest city of Bouake on Tuesday before spreading to the economic capital Abidjan; Ferkessedougou and Khorogo in the north; and Bondoukou and Abengourou in the east.
The unrest prompted former colonial power France to warn its roughly 100 residents in Ivory Coast to stay in their homes, as a precautionary measure.
AFP
