Fierce gunfire reported in Guinea-Bissau's capital between security forces

KIGALI, Rwanda

Guinea-Bissau’s National Guard soldiers exchanged gunfire with special forces early Friday near military camps south of the national capital Bissau, according to reports.

The shots were reported in the Luanda neighborhood on the outskirts of Bissau near the headquarters of the Rapid Intervention Brigade of the National Guard.

The fire exchange occurred after the National Guard soldiers freed Finance Minister Sulemaine Seide and Secretary of State for the Treasury Antonio Monteiro, who was held on Thursday night over a withdrawal of about $10 million from state coffers to offer credit to 11 businessmen, news portal Democrat reported.

The two government officials were held at the headquarters of the Judiciary Police, but were taken out of their cells by elements of the National Guard, and an exchange of fire ensued after special forces intervened against the National Guard, the report said.

The tensions broke out as President Umaro Sissoco Embalo was away attending the UN climate change conference COP28 in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates.

“Such an exchange of fire in a country with a history of coups, and on the backdrop of recent coups and attempted coups in the West Africa region raises fears,” Raphael Nkaka, a governance expert based in Rwanda’s capital Kigali, told Anadolu.

Guinea-Bissau, the West African state located between Senegal, Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean, has witnessed nearly a dozen coups, coup plots or attempted military rebellions since independence from Portugal in 1974.

The latest was in February 2022, when Embalo, who was elected in 2019 for a five-year term, survived an attempted coup.

The two government officials were reportedly taken into custody after more than four hours of interrogation at the public prosecutor’s office.

Their arrest came days after Seide was on Monday questioned about the money withdrawal by MPs in the National Assembly.

Opposition lawmakers denounced the case in parliament as a “fraud and disrespect of budgetary rules.”

However, Seide argued that the process complied with the legal procedures.