Government armed forces in the divided Côte d’Ivoire on Thursday rejected rebel demands for the loyalist and rebel forces to be integrated and the rebels to be paid wage arrears. Disarmament talks between government and rebel forces follow four years of division in the West African country.
Two years after Ibrahim Kone applied to renew his national identity card, he found it by chance — floating down a river in Bouake, a rebel-held Côte d’Ivoire town. Kone believes the laminated document was dumped there with a box full of others by authorities who doubted he was Ivorian, and ”never had any intention of issuing it”.
Army troops and rebels began pulling back heavy weapons from front lines in Côte d’Ivoire on Thursday, a crucial step toward implementing a South African-brokered peace deal to end more than two years of civil war. The pull-back sets the stage for a nationwide disarmament campaign.
Warring factions in Côte d’Ivoire have agreed to begin a long-delayed disarmament campaign on May 14, the latest bid to stave off a resumption of hostilities in this war-divided nation. Both sides agreed on Saturday to begin pulling heavy arms away from front lines that divide the nation beginning April 21.
A New Zealander, held captive for almost a month by Ivorian rebels on suspicion of being a mercenary working for the government, has died in a rebel jail, Red Cross and rebel officials said on Tuesday. Brian Hamish Sands (36) was found dead in his prison cell in the northern town of Korhogo on Monday night.
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/ 30 September 2003
Members of Côte d’Ivoire’s rebel forces on Tuesday exchanged gunfire in Bouake, the rebels’ stronghold in the centre of the divided West African country. Shooting erupted in a fire station far from French peacekeepers who have stepped up patrols since a botched bank robbery by rebel soldiers killed 23 at the weekend.
Cote D’ Ivoire new communications minister said on Sunday he planned to open up the country’s airwaves to private television and radio networks in 2004.
The head of the main rebel group in strife-torn Ivory Coast Monday called for the United Nations to dispatch troops to the country to enforce a French-brokered peace accord.
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/ 10 February 2003
Ivory Coast rebels on Monday said a peace deal to end the country’s five-month civil war was not negotiable and threatened to split the country in two if the accord was not implemented to their satisfaction.
At least 12 people have died and 58 were wounded in fighting between government forces and rebels holding the Ivory Coast city of Bouake, an AFP journalist reported on Tuesday
Rebels in Ivory Coast have set up a website and have begun broadcasting their own television programs from their central stronghold of Bouake. Since Monday evening, rebels have been broadcasting on the same channel as the Ivorian national network, RTI.
Rebels in Ivory Coast signed a truce in their central stronghold of Bouake, agreeing to halt fighting, raising hopes of an end to the month-long uprising against the government.
Ivory Coast rebels on Monday called off ceasefire talks and demanded the resignation of President Laurent Gbagbo, who responded by vowing to end their uprising within the week.
Inside the Ivory Coast military base turned rebel headquarters in the city of Bouake, two negotiators back from peace talks in Togo rallied their supporters on Friday at an emergency meeting.
When a resident of rebel-held Bouake in Ivory Coast rings the headquarters of the mutineers who seized control here in September to complain that he was robbed, they react fast.
French troops on Sunday created a buffer zone stretching through the centre of Ivory Coast to secure a fragile ceasefire in a month-long uprising that has left rebels in control of half the west African nation.
The fighting raged so close that bullets whizzed through the jail yard. Locked in their cells, the prisoners grew frantic. They pounded and hacked at the doors. Some managed to break out, escape over the walls and hide in the bush. But instead of freedom, many met death, fellow inmates say.
Rebels and the government of Ivory Coast will sign a ceasefire on Friday in the capital Yamoussoukro, it was announced after a ministerial mediating team met insurgents in the rebel-held city of Bouake on Thursday.