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5 killed in Ivory Coast anti-government protests
Police fired on demonstrators at an anti-government rally Friday, killing five people and wounding a dozen others in Ivory Coast's latest protest since the president dissolved the government a week ago, the opposition said.
Demonstrations spread to at least eight cities in the West African nation on Friday. Moussa Dembele of the opposition RDR party said the deadly protest took place in Gagnoa, about 125 miles northwest of the economic capital, Abidjan.
President Laurent Gbagbo had set a Friday deadline to form a new government but the prime minister on Thursday evening asked for a 48-hour extension.
Dembele said late Wednesday that the death toll had increased to five people, from three earlier in the day.
"The police were aiming directly at the protesters," he said. "These weren't stray bullets."