Ex-President Killed In Abidjan Mutiny
<b>ABIDJAN, Thursday</b> - Ivory Coast’s former military ruler Robert Guei and a top government minister were killed Thursday amid a bloody mutiny by hundreds of soldiers in several towns, government officials and diplomats said.
ABIDJAN, Thursday - Ivory Coast’s former military ruler Robert Guei and a top government minister were killed Thursday amid a bloody mutiny by hundreds of soldiers in several towns, government officials and diplomats said.
Defence Minister Moise Lida Kouassi told AFP that Guei’s body was found near a hospital in Abidjan’s upmarket Cocody district, following the mutiny which broke out around 3:00 a.m. (0300 GMT).
General Guei had earlier been blamed by an aide to President Laurent Gbagbo, who was in Italy on an official visit, for the uprising in the west African country.
Officials also put the mutiny down to troops disgruntled at the prospect of imminent demobilisation.
Diplomatic sources said Interior Minister Emile Boga Doudou, one of the heavyweights in President Laurent Gbagbo’s government, was dead after an attack on his Abidjan home. An informed source said he was wounded.
Renegade soldiers were in “total control†of the country’s second town of Bouake, 400km north of Abidjan, a top official in the town said.
But mutineers were beaten back when they attacked military bases in the commercial capital.
At least 10 loyalist forces were killed and dozens wounded in the riots, gendarmerie sources told AFP, saying between 500 and 600 men had “attacked in several wavesâ€.
AFP journalists also saw eight bodies said to be those of mutineers at Abidjan’s Agban gendarmie barracks.
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Defence Minister Moise Lida Kouassi told AFP that Guei’s body was found near a hospital in Abidjan’s upmarket Cocody district, following the mutiny which broke out around 3:00 a.m. (0300 GMT).
General Guei had earlier been blamed by an aide to President Laurent Gbagbo, who was in Italy on an official visit, for the uprising in the west African country.
Officials also put the mutiny down to troops disgruntled at the prospect of imminent demobilisation.
Diplomatic sources said Interior Minister Emile Boga Doudou, one of the heavyweights in President Laurent Gbagbo’s government, was dead after an attack on his Abidjan home. An informed source said he was wounded.
Renegade soldiers were in “total control†of the country’s second town of Bouake, 400km north of Abidjan, a top official in the town said.
But mutineers were beaten back when they attacked military bases in the commercial capital.
At least 10 loyalist forces were killed and dozens wounded in the riots, gendarmerie sources told AFP, saying between 500 and 600 men had “attacked in several wavesâ€.
AFP journalists also saw eight bodies said to be those of mutineers at Abidjan’s Agban gendarmie barracks.
Ends