While the Ivory Coast government claims a deal has been reached with mutinous soldiers involved in a four-day revolt over unpaid bonuses, the mutineers beg to differ.
According to one of the rebels, Sergeant Seydou Kone, the government had proposed paying the rebels five million francs each (approximately R9,200).
Soldiers - former rebels who helped President Alassane Ouattara to power and are now embadded in the army - also rejected the proposal, saying they had not been consulted.
A mutinying soldier gestures as he stands in guard at the checkpoint of the entrance of Bouake, Ivory Coast May 15, 2017.
But it has struggled to keep a promise of a further payment of seven million CFA francs after a collapse in the price of cocoa caused a revenue crunch.
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast - Gunfire and continued threats by mutinous soldiers in several cities in Ivory Coast led banks, schools, and businesses to close Monday amid fears of fighting.
Another mutineer spokesman in Bouake, Sergeant Cisse, said the soldiers would return to barracks "once the 7 million is deposited in our accounts".
Armed forces chief of staff General Sekou Toure on Sunday said a military operation was under way "to re-establish order" and made a televised appeal to the disgruntled soldiers to return to their barracks.
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Gunfire was reportedly heard overnight in both Bouake and at military camps in Abidjan.
On Monday, gunfights erupted in cities of Abidjan and Bouake.
A spokesman for the group said on Thursday they would drop demands for the remaining money, an announcement rejected by numerous soldiers who sparked the current revolt.
The soldiers were to be paid bonuses of 12m CFA francs ($19,950) each, with an initial payment of 5m francs that month.
The main border crossing with neighbour Burkina Faso north of the town of Ouangolodougou was closed by the revolt, residents and the head of a transportation association said.
Heavy shooting was also heard in Daloa, a hub for the western cocoa growing regions of the country. "The banks are closed and so are the cocoa-buying businesses", said Aka Marcel, a farmer co-operative manager in Daloa.
A spokesman for the mutineers denied rumours of clashes with government troops in Bouake and said the renegade soldiers were firing in the air to dissuade any government advance.
Several schools near the camp did not open and the Abidjan-based African Development Bank, which employs several thousand people - many of them global staff - told its employees to stay home.
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