Two people were killed in an outbreak of violence between members of the national guard and special forces for the protection of the president in the capital Bissau on Thursday evening. The army later ordered its members back to barracks.
President Umaru Sissoko Embalu, who attended the COP28 climate change conference in Dubai, returned to Bissau on Saturday and announced that he had been prevented from returning earlier by an “attempted coup d’état”.
On Monday, he said the National Guard and “certain political interests in the state apparatus” are complicit.
This means that “the normal functioning of the institutions of the Republic has become impossible”, he added.
“The date for the upcoming legislative elections will be set at the appropriate time in accordance with the constitution,” US Embal said in a statement.
Since 1974, when Guinea-Bissau declared its independence from Portugal, the country has experienced four military coups, the most recent of which was in 2012.
US Embalo, who was elected to a five-year term in December 2019, survived a brutal five-hour shooting in February 2022 during an attempted coup.
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2024-08-22 09:10:12
