Soldiers in Burkina Faso's capital have mutinied, with gunfire resounding throughout Ouagadougou overnight.
The BBC's Mathieu Bonkoungou says President Blaise Compaore is understood to have fled the presidential palace, where the trouble started at 2100 GMT.
Members of the presidential guard started shooting into the air in protest at unpaid housing subsidies.
Mr Compaore, in power since 1987, had sought to calm soldiers earlier this month after similar complaints.
Our reporter in the city says the unrest spread to other barracks and firing went on until just before dawn - it is unclear where the president went after he reportedly left the palace before midnight.A source in the presidency has told the AFP news agency that he is now back in the capital after going to his hometown overnight but this has not been confirmed.
Earlier on Thursday, marches were held in the capital and other towns to protest at rising food prices and alleged civil rights abuses, AFP news agency reports.
Burkina Faso, a struggling country of 16.3 million people, has been affected by the turmoil in neighbouring Ivory Coast.
The World Bank warned on Thursday that the Ivorian conflict had disrupted supplies and also pushed up prices for processed foods such as dried milk, sugar and vegetable oil in Burkina Faso and other landlocked countries in the region such as Mali and Niger.
'Surprise'Ouagadougou-based journalist Phiombiano Moustapha says since the firing stopped at about 0500 GMT, many people have been too afraid to come out of their houses and are waiting at their homes, listening to the radio.
"No-one has slept. We had a very very hard night - there were gunshots from machine guns to heavy artillery," he told the BBC's Network Africa programme.
"It started with the presidential special guard and then followed by other military camps, so the whole city was like what you saw in Abidjan [in Ivory Coast]."
He said the house of the president's personal chief of staff had been burned down, some buildings and shops bombarded, including a pro-government radio station.
The mutiny has come a surprise to many residents as the president had recently held a reconciliation meeting with the security forces, listening to their demands, Mr Moustapha said.
Mr Compaore has ruled the country since taking power in a coup 23 years ago, after which he won four presidential elections, the latest in November 2010.

Source: BBC