DEMAND FOR JOBS
Former Ivory Coast rebels demand payment of bonuses and jobs
The demobilised rebel fighters set up barricades to seal off the main road south from Bouake
Abidjan — Demobilised rebel fighters blocked a main road into Ivory Coast’s second city on Monday, demanding the payment of bonuses and jobs in the army and state institutions. The former fighters set up barricades, sealing off the main road south from Bouake, the centre of a wave of army mutinies that had paralysed the world’s top cocoa grower earlier in 2017. A witness and a soldier, who was not part of the group, said they saw hundreds of demobilised fighters, some armed. "We’re asking for President Alassane Ouattara to have a thought for his sons, who have suffered for 15 years," Amadou Ouattara, who described himself as the spokesman for the group, said. Split from 2002-11 between rebels in the north and government forces in the south, a post-war recovery has seen Ivory Coast become one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. But the unrest has exposed divisions in the military. Defence Minister Alain-Richard Donwahi said the protesters were brought to the local government he...
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