Several people were killed Friday in clashes between security forces and demonstrators staging a protest against President Laurent Gbagbo at Gagnoa in western Ivory Coast, hospital sources said. Medical staff said that demonstrators brought three bodies with gunshot wounds to the hospital complex in the town. At least one other person was admitted with serious wounds, according to the staff reached by telephone.
A police source confirmed "some dead," but could not say how many. "The police and gendarmerie forces char and that the victims had gunshot the demonstrators using live ammunition," said Gildas Konan, local co-ordinator of the youth movement of the Democratic Party of Ivory Coast, one of the main opposition parties.
The march began early in the morning by demonstrators who were calling for the reinstatement of the Independent Electoral Commission dissolved by Gbagbo on February 12, when he also sacked the government, causing an outcry. Since the beginning of the week, protests studded with violence have taken place across the west African country, but the demonstration in Gagnoa was the first where deaths were reported. Prime Minister Guillaume Soro, a former rebel leader who was kept in his post by Gbagbo, has been given until Saturday to form a new government, amid fears that it will not include the opposition like the last one did.