By Friday morning, disgruntled soldiers, firing guns in the air, had surrounded the military headquarters in Abidjan. The soldiers received 5m francs ($8,370) in January, and were due to get the rest of the sum this month. Sean Lyngaas, a journalist based in Abidjan, told Al Jazeera that the decision of the mutinuous soldiers' spokesman "did not sit well with many" and that he "wasn't really representing the totality of the group". Ivory Coast was plunged into civil war in 2002 following a failed attempt to oust then-president Laurent Gbagbo. The revolt sliced the former French colony into the rebel-held north and the government-controlled south and triggered years of unrest.

Source: The North Africa Journal May 13, 2017 07:18 UTC