ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Ivorian security forces dispersed protesters with tear gas in south-western Gagnoa town on Saturday, witnesses and protesters said, a day after opening fire on demonstrators there and killing five.
"The police are here and they have launched tear gas to disperse us but we stayed," protester Issa Diomande told Reuters by telephone. "They have not fired their guns yet. We are going to march all day."
The military confirmed on national television that five people had been killed and nine wounded in Friday's protest.
Demonstrations have erupted almost daily across the country since President Laurent Gbagbo dissolved the government and the electoral commission a week ago, after a row over voter registration.
But Friday's clashes between police and protestors were the first to result in bloodshed, heightening tension as public anger grows at years of delays to the election timetable.
Gbagbo said in a statement in the state-owned Fraternite Matin newspaper that he had reinstated Defence Minister Michel N'Guessan Amani, Interior Minister Désiré Tagro and Finance Minister Charles Diby to handle government business while the prime minister tries to form a new government.
(Reporting by Ange Aboa and Tim Cocks)
