Abidjan - Gunmen
killed five soldiers and seized weapons in a pre-dawn raid on an army
camp in Ivory Coast's commercial capital Abidjan on Monday, military
officials said, heightening fears of renewed instability in the world's
top cocoa-growing country.
The West African state, where five soldiers were killed in a
similar attack on a police station and army roadblock in another part of
Abidjan only the day before, is emerging from years of political
turmoil but remains awash with illegal weapons.
A group of unidentified heavily armed men in civilian clothes
stormed the army camp in the Akouedo neighbourhood, on the eastern edge
of the city, at around 3:30 a.m., an officer present at the base told
Reuters.
Fighting lasted nearly three hours before the army took back control of the area.
"They attacked the two entrances to the camp simultaneously and
opened fire. We've counted five dead on our side and one among the
assailants," said Colonel Cherif Moussa, the Ivorian army's deputy chief
of staff.
Reuters witnesses saw the bodies of four soldiers who had been
shot in an office just inside the camp entrance. Another lay on the
ground outside and appeared to have been beaten to death. Others were
wounded in the gunbattle though officials did not immediately say how
many.
Dozens of government soldiers and five armoured vehicles carrying
peacekeepers from Ivory Coast's United Nations mission, UNOCI, were
positioned near the entrances to the compound on Monday morning. Bullet
holes covered the camp's exterior walls.
"There were many of them and they attacked the camp from all
sides," Corporal Ousmane Kone, who took part in the fighting, said.
"They took lots of weapons, loaded them in a truck and drove off with
them. They took AK-47s (automatic rifles), machine guns and
rocket-propelled grenades," he said.
Guillaume Soro, president of the Ivory Coast parliament, said the
situation was back under control and the army was pursuing the
attackers. "The prompt reaction of our forces put down the attack ...
Our soldiers are currently carrying out clean-up operations," he said in
a statement posted on Twitter.
Heavily armed soldiers patrolled the streets in Abidjan's eastern
neighbourhoods in the late morning. Shops in the area closed their
doors and few vehicles circulated.
ESCALATING VIOLENCE
The West African nation has sought to re-establish normalcy after
a decade of political deadlock and civil unrest that ended with a brief
civil war in 2011 that killed around 3,000 people.
The conflict erupted after then-President Laurent Gbagbo refused
to admit defeat to rival Alassane Ouattara in late 2010 election.
Gbagbo, who was captured during the fighting, is now awaiting trial
before the International Criminal Court in The Hague on war crimes
charges.
While Ouattara, now president, has managed to improve security in
most of the country, efforts to remove from circulation thousands of
weapons left over from the conflict have faltered and sporadic violence
persists.
There has been an escalation in armed attacks, mainly in the
country's cocoa-rich west, long the scene of ethnic violence and
score-settling linked to disputes over land ownership.
At least five soldiers were killed when gunmen fired on a police
station and army roadblock on Sunday in Abidjan's Yopougon
neighbourhood, a former Gbagbo bastion.
More than twenty people, including seven U.N. peacekeepers, were
killed in raids along Ivory Coast's border with Liberia in June in what
Ivorian authorities said were cross-border incursions by pro-Gbagbo
militias and Liberian mercenaries.
-Reuters
