ABIDJAN (AFP) — More than 10 people were injured Monday when Ivory Coast riot police moved against several hundred demonstrators, mainly women, in Abidjan protesting over high prices.
Riot police used batons, tear gas and, apparently gunfire, to disperse the demonstrators on the outskirts of the economic capital's working-class Yopougon district, when they tried to put up roadblocks during their protest.
AFP journalists and witnesses saw at least a dozen wounded people some of whom had bullet wounds.
"We were only protesting against an increase in food prices when the police came to gas us," one demonstrator said, asking not to be named, but showing where he had been clubbed on the torso.
"My friend's leg was fractured by a bullet and I saw injured 'mamans'," he added, referring to the women traders who hold sway in many African street markets.
Protesters shouting slogans about their hunger and against President Laurent Gbagbo barred one of the main roads leading out of the port city to the north of the country.
Officers with the Anti-Riot Brigade briefly detained two AFP journalists, including a photographer, at the scene.
Gbagbo is unpopular in Yopougon, but made a surprise visit there on Friday with French former government minister Jack Lang and many journalists to visit the Rue Princesse nightclub, one of the most renowned in the city.
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