OUAGADOUGOU: Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore, facing a mutiny by his personal guard, strove to reassert his authority on Friday after a day of massive street protests and a night in which soldiers ran riot.
The veteran leader was to meet at the presidential palace, where the mutiny broke out on late Thursday, with Choi Young-Jin, the head of the UN peacekeeping force in neighbouring Ivory Coast, the source said. Compaore, who has been in power since a 1987 military coup, had slipped out of Ouagadougou in the middle of night for his hometown Ziniare, some 30 kilometres (18 miles) north of the capital.
He left the palace as the mutiny among the presidential guard spread to other army barracks, following a day of mass civilian street protests in the landlocked West African country.
Before leaving, Compaore said "discussions have taken place with the mutineers and they are laying down their arms," but gunfire could be heard near some of the barracks.
An AFP journalist reported that small and heavy arms fire first came from the barracks of the elite and well-paid presidential guard before spreading to the other barracks and military camps.Presidential guard members took to the streets, firing into the air, to protest against the non-payment of promised housing subsidies.
The home of General Gilbert Diendiere, Compaore's personal chief of staff, was burned down, the AFP journalist said, adding that soldiers looted many consumer goods stores in the capital.
Several people, including civilians, were slightly injured during the sacking of an officer's home, a military source said.
On Thursday, tens of thousands of people across the country marched in protest against the high cost of living in one of the biggest demonstrations seen in many years in Ouagadougou
Marches also took place in 10 other towns across the country.
In late March, angry soldiers seized military equipment in several towns including the capital, firing shots in the airThey also looted shops and freed soldiers who had been serving time for rape and other sex crimes.
Compaore, himself a former army captain, met members of the armed forces after the incidents and said the crisis was over after the talks.
The 60-year-old leader was re-elected in the first round of an election last November with more than 80 percent of the vote. He has won elections since 1991, four years after the coup in which his predecessor and comrade-in-arms President Thomas Sankara was killed.
Compaore has faced a series of protests since February, staged first by students and then by soldiers.
Six people, including four students and a policeman, were killed in riots in late February in the town of Koudougou, 100 kilometres west of Ouagadougou, after a student died in disputed circumstances.
Thursday's marches were organised by the National Coalition against the High Cost of Living (CCVC), an alliance of trade unions, consumer organisations, rights groups and small businesses
"We came out in the tens of thousands today to shout out that we have had it up to here with the high cost of living," said CCVC coordinator Tole Sagnon, who also heads up the Burkina General Confederation of Labour.
The protesters also wanted to express their anger at what he said was the regime's "multiple crimes", he added.
Some marchers shouted slogans related to the 1998 murder of investigative journalist Norbert Zongo.
Zongo's bullet-riddled body, together with that of his brother and two colleagues, was found in their burnt-out car.
Media rights campaigners have accused the regime of having covered up the true facts surrounding the killings.
Zongo had been investigating the murder of the president's brother, Francois Compaore.
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