DAKAR: Guinea-Bissau’s President Umaro Sissoco Embalo said on Tuesday that “many” members of the security forces had been killed in a “failed attack against democracy”.

Earlier, the African Union and the West African regional bloc ECOWAS described the attack on a government compound as an “attempted coup”.

Appearing in a video posted on the presidency’s Facebook page hours after gunfire was heard near a compound where he was chairing a cabinet meeting, Embalo said some of the people involved had been arrested, but he did not know how many.

Social media posts from accounts linked to President Embalo said the situation in the coup-prone West African country was under government control and calm had returned to the capital Bissau.

“Calm returns to Bissau!” said a post on Embalo’s official Facebook account.

Sissoco Embalo had begun chairing an extraordinary cabinet meeting at around 10am, entering the Government Palace with a heavy security detail, a diplomatic source said. While he was present in the building, gunfire began outside.

The cabinet meeting was being held to prepare for a forthcoming ECOWAS summit in response to last week’s military takeover in Burkina Faso, the latest in a rash of coups across the region in the last 18 months.

“It looks increasingly hard to argue against the idea of coup contagion,” said Eric Humphrey-Smith, an analyst at risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft.

“When added to successful coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Chad in the past year, there is no doubt that West African leaders are nervously looking over their shoulders.”

Published in Dawn, February 2nd, 2022