Guinea Bissau woke up today, again, with fear in its body. During the night from Thursday to Friday, intense gunfire was heard in Antula, a neighborhood on the outskirts of the capital, and near the presidential palace.
This morning, the country woke up to a strong presence of military vehicles and the sound of gunshots, although less intense than during the night.
Although the circumstances of the clashes, which lasted until Friday morning, are still unclear, it is feared that it is a new coup d'état in the unstable former Portuguese colony, which in February last year already suffered a failed attempt at a military coup, which ended with six deaths.
It wouldn't be an unusual scenario. There have been at least 10 coups or attempted coups in Guinea Bissau since it gained independence from Portugal in 1974. Only one democratically elected president has completed a term in the West African country, located south of Senegal.
If the military coup is confirmed, the coup d'état in Guinea Bissau would become the tenth that has occurred in Africa since 2020. Burkina Faso and Mali also appear on the list, with two uprisings each, Gabon, Chad, Guinea -Conakry, Sudan or Niger.
In addition, it would be necessary to add several frustrated coup attempts such as the one Sierra Leone suffered last Sunday by “renegade soldiers”, as defined by the Freetown executive itself, which were finally neutralized.
part of Guinea-Bissau, other states on the continent such as Sao Tome and Principe, the Central African Republic, Niger and Sudan suffered riots that did not achieve their objective of overthrowing power.
