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DAKAR (Senegal), Nov 29 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Guinea-Bissau’s deposed President Umaro Sissoco Embaló has arrived in neighbouring Senegal following his release by military forces that toppled his government this week, Senegal’s authorities have announced.
It follows negotiations by the regional West African bloc Ecowas to secure his transfer amid rising tensions in Guinea-Bissau.
Senegal’s foreign ministry said in a statement that Embaló had landed in the country “safe and sound” on a chartered military flight late on Thursday.
The military in Guinea-Bissau has already sworn in a new transitional leader, Gen Horta N’Tam, who will rule the coup-prone country for a year.
Wednesday’s coup came a day before authorities were due to announce the provisional results of a presidential and parliamentary election.
The military has suspended the electoral process and blocked the release of the results.
Sandwiched between Senegal and Guinea, the coup-prone country is known as a drug-trafficking hub where the military has been influential since it gained independence from Portugal in 1974.
Government sources earlier told the BBC that Dias, Pereira, and Interior Minister Botché Candé had also been detained.
The military junta has banned public protests and “all disturbing actions of peace and stability in the country”.
Ecowas leaders have suspended Guinea-Bissau from all decision-making organs until constitutional order is restored. In a statement, the bloc ordered the military to return to the barracks, calling its actions a “grave violation of Guinea-Bissau’s constitutional order”.
The African Union (AU) has also condemned the coup and called for respect for the constitutional order.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement that he was “deeply concerned” about the situation in Guinea-Bissau, calling for an “immediate and unconditional restoration of constitutional order”.
Guinea-Bissau has witnessed at least nine coups or attempted coups over the last five decades. — NNN-AGENCIES
