Guinea-Bissau Streets Empty After Military Coup

Streets of Bissau, Guinea-Bissau’s capital, were largely deserted on Thursday after the military seized power, halting the announcement of election results, arresting President Umaro Sissoco Embaló, and shutting the borders of the coup-prone West African nation.

Armed soldiers maintained a strong presence around the presidential palace in Bissau, where heavy gunfire had echoed the previous day.

According to AFP, only a handful of residents came out to the main road leading to the complex, while troops continued sweeping patrols through the city overnight.

The tension followed Wednesday’s declaration by a group of military officers that they had taken “total control” of the country.

The officers suspended the electoral process just as citizens awaited provisional results from Sunday’s general election, which incumbent President Embalo was widely expected to win.

The results had been scheduled for release on Thursday before the coup was announced.

By early afternoon, Head of the Presidential Military Office, General Denis N’Canha, told journalists that a unified command “composed of all branches of the armed forces” had assumed control “until further notice.”

N’Canha alleged that the military had uncovered a plot involving “drug lords,” claiming weapons had been brought into the country to disrupt constitutional order.

He stressed that the military had not only halted “the entire electoral process” but also suspended “all media programming,” shut all land, air and sea borders, and imposed a mandatory curfew.

A military source indicated that the leader of its “High Command for the Restoration of Order” would be announced later on Thursday.