[ad_1]
Guinea-Bissau’s president, Umaro Cissoco Embaló, has mentioned the scenario within the nation is “underneath management” following fears of an tried coup and heavy gunfire within the capital.
Gunshots erupted close to the federal government palace in Guinea-Bissau’s capital on Tuesday afternoon, sparking fears of a coup try within the west African nation, which has suffered repeated army takeovers.
President Umaro Cissoco Embaló was holding a cupboard assembly in authorities workplaces this morning, earlier than an assault close to the constructing started. Footage posted on social media confirmed armed males with computerized rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, whereas different footage confirmed folks fleeing as steady gunfire was heard round them.
The state broadcaster reported that “invaders” have been holding authorities officers however on Tuesday night, a press release from the president’s Fb account mentioned “Calm returns to Bissau!”
Then in a press release broadcast stay on native media on Tuesday night time, the president mentioned that safety forces have been capable of cease a “failed assault in opposition to democracy” and that “many” safety officers had died. No ministers have been killed he mentioned and arrests had already been made.
On Tuesday lots of the capital’s streets have been scarce attributable to fears of the unrest.
West African regional bloc Ecowas swiftly condemned what it described as an tried coup on Tuesday afternoon. “Ecowas is following with nice concern the evolution of the scenario in Guinea-Bissau … the place army gunfire is going down across the authorities palace,” the organisation mentioned.
“Ecowas condemns this tried coup and holds the army liable for the security of President Umaro Cissoco Embaló and members of his authorities,” it added.
The feedback mirror a press release launched final week after a coup in Burkina Faso, one other in a rising variety of coups within the final 18 months in west Africa.
A number of army takeovers in Mali, in addition to Guinea and Burkina Faso, have seen militaries backed by fashionable help depose elected leaders, fuelled by mass frustration with rising jihadist insurgency within the Sahel.
Guinea-Bissau has usually confronted the specter of army coups since gaining independence from Portugal in 1974. The small nation of simply 1.5 million folks has had 4 coups and greater than a dozen makes an attempt.
The UN mentioned secretary common António Guterres was “deeply involved with the information of heavy combating in Bissau”.
He known as for “a direct finish to the combating and for full respect of the nation’s democratic establishments”.
Embaló, a former military common, was declared the winner of the 2020 election, though the outcomes have been contested by former PM Domingos Simões Pereira.
Embaló then began forming a brand new authorities with help from the army whereas a supreme courtroom election problem was nonetheless pending.
In October final yr, the armed forces chief mentioned members of the army had been getting ready to launch a coup whereas the president was on a working journey to Brazil.
Troops had been providing bribes to different troopers “as a way to subvert the established constitutional order”, armed forces head Basic Biague Na Ntam mentioned.
After independence from Portuguese colonial rule, Guinea-Bissau has grappled with successive coup makes an attempt, civil warfare and corruption, and is among the world’s poorest nations. Drug trafficking is a serious problem and within the 2000s, it grew to become referred to as a transit level for cocaine between Latin America and Europe as traffickers profited from corruption and weak regulation enforcement.
[ad_2]
Source link