ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Anti-government demonstrators marched through Ivory Coast's western cocoa hub Daloa on Monday, burning tyres and pelting soldiers and police officers with stones, as the security forces drove them back with tear gas, a witness said.
Protests have erupted almost daily since President Laurent Gbagbo dissolved his goverment and the electoral commission on February 12, and the military killed at least five protesters at a rally on Friday.
"There are people in the streets burning tyres and throwing stones. The shops are shut," Alidou Kone, a Daloa resident, told Reuters by telephone. "I'm seeing black smoke rising from two other parts of the city as well."
Protests had been largely peaceful until Friday, when security forces opened fire on demonstrators in the southwestern town of Gagnoa, killing five people and escalating an already tense situation across the country.
Prime Minister Guillaume Soro, a rebel during the 2002-3 civil war that carved the country in two and due to form a government last Saturday, has been tipped by aides as likely to announce a new government on Monday.
(Reporting by Ange Aboa; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Louise Ireland)