Four killed in I Coast clashes

BOUAKÉ, Ivory Coast: Four people were killed and many hurt when police clashed on Tuesday with former rebels barricading the road into Bouake, Ivory Coast´s second biggest city, in the spillover from a corrosive army mutiny over pay.

The protesters said security forces opened fire to disperse them, but the government denied responsibility.

"Security forces deployed conventional measures to maintain order," Interior Minister Hamed Bakayoko said in a statement.

"But some of the armed demonstrators pulled the pin out of a grenade that exploded among them," he added.

Three bloodied bodies were brought into the main Bouake hospital, an AFP reporter said, shortly after police stepped in to evict protesters who had obstructed the northbound road into Bouake on Monday.

A fourth person later died, he was among around 15 people seriously injured in the clashes, hospital sources said.

The highway into Bouake is the main road for the world´s top cocoa producer, linking the economic capital Abidjan in the south to northern Ivory Coast and to its commercially vital neighbour Burkina Faso.

"This is serious," said a rebel spokesman, Amadou Ouattara. "I never would´ve imagined shooting at unarmed people who are demonstrating."

The violence comes days after a crippling four-day mutiny by former rebels who joined the army in 2011, as peace returned after a decade-long war that had split the country in two.

The 8,400 mutineers last week halted their protest and returned to barracks after reaching an agreement with the government in a pay dispute.

The rebels protesting in Bouake are among 6,000 nationwide who did not join the army, but who are now demanding identical compensation from the government for the war.