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8 die in failed coup
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AT least eight people died during an attempted coup in Cote d'Ivoire on Monday.
The government said order had been restored but 31 people were arrested and a night-time curfew was imposed for three days. There was no immediate indication of who was responsible for the coup attempt.
Heavy exchanges of fire had been heard overnight in the centre of Abidjan, the country's main commercial city, and by early morning a group of disaffected troops had taken over the national radio centre.
As the population stayed in their homes fearing a repeat of the street violence that marred last October's election, leaving more than 200 dead, the soldiers broadcast lavish claims about a “new day for Cote d'Ivoire”. But the elected government of President Laurent Gbagbo ordered military police to storm the radio station.
By mid-morning it was back under their control and some sort of normality had returned to the streets of Abidjan.
The incident is the latest in a tide of political unrest since Christmas Eve 1999, when General Robert Guei came to power in a coup, the first violent change of government since independence from France in 1960.
The Cote d'Ivoire Government urged its people to go back to work yesterday, saying they had nothing to fear after a failed coup denounced as a terrorist act but dismissed as amateurish by President Gbagbo. “The people who did this coup are amateurs, they're children,” he said.(SD-Agencies)
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