International Courant
Clashes broke out between two military factions on Thursday night after two authorities officers have been launched from custody.
Gunfire and clashes that broke out in Guinea-Bissau’s capital this week have been an “tried coup,” President Umaro Sissoco Embalo mentioned.
Clashes between the Nationwide Guard and presidential guard particular forces broke out in Bissau on Thursday night and continued on Friday after Nationwide Guard troopers launched two senior authorities officers detained in reference to a corruption investigation.
No less than two folks have been killed within the unrest within the small West African nation.
Embalo, who was in Dubai attending the COP28 local weather convention, arrived in Bissau on Saturday and mentioned an “tried coup” had prevented him from returning.
“I have to let you know that this act could have severe penalties,” he added.
By Friday afternoon, calm had returned to the nation with a historical past of instability, after the announcement that the army had captured Colonel Victor Tchongo, the commander of the Nationwide Guard.
On Saturday, the safety presence was lowered in Bissau, however troopers have been nonetheless seen round sure strategic buildings, such because the presidential palace, the headquarters of the judicial police and a few ministries.
Some Nationwide Guard officers and troopers fled into the nation’s inside, the military mentioned in a press release on Saturday, with out specifying figures.
ECOWAS condemns violence
The Financial Group of West African States (ECOWAS) mentioned it “strongly condemns the violence and any makes an attempt to disrupt the constitutional order and the rule of regulation in Guinea-Bissau.”
“ECOWAS additional requires the arrest and prosecution of the perpetrators of the incident in accordance with the regulation,” the Abuja-based group added in its assertion on Saturday.
The regional bloc additionally expressed “its full solidarity with the folks and constitutional authorities of Guinea-Bissau.”
A spokesman for U.N. chief Antonio Guterres Stephane Dujarric referred to as for calm on Friday and urged safety forces and the army to “proceed to chorus from interfering in nationwide politics.”
Allegations of corruption
Information company AFP, citing army and intelligence sources, mentioned Nationwide Guard members stormed a police station on Thursday to free Finance Minister Souleiman Seidi and Finance Minister Antonio Monteiro.
The duo was arrested on Thursday morning for questioning over the reported withdrawal of $10 million from the state treasury. They have been detained on the orders of prosecutors named by the president.
They have been later detained once more after the army eliminated them from Nationwide Guard management.
The Nationwide Guard is below the management of the Ministry of the Inside, which, like most ministries within the nation, is dominated by the PAIGC social gathering whose coalition received the June 2023 elections.
There have been not less than ten coups or tried coups in Guinea-Bissau since independence from Portugal in 1974, with just one democratically elected president serving a full time period.
Embalo, who was elected to a five-year time period in December 2019, survived a failed overthrow in February 2022.
West Africa has been hit by a number of army takeovers prior to now three years, together with two in Mali, one in Guinea, two in Burkina Faso and one in Gabon.
Guinea-Bissau’s president says this week’s violence was an ‘tried coup’ | Political information
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