Julius Maada Bio, Sierra Leone president, says calm restoredand that most of the people who planned the attack on a military barracks in the capital, Freetown, have been arrested. He also says that security operations and a probe are still going on.
After the attack, President Julius Maada Bio said that most of the people who planned it had been caught. He called the events a "breach of security" and an attack on democracy in a TV speech. He was very careful not to call them an attempt at a coup.
Sierra Leone president Julius Maada Bio wearing a gray suit On Sunday, there were armed clashes in Sierra Leone's capital after what the government called an attack on a military armory. The government then put a national curfew in place right away.
People who were in the Wilberforce neighborhood of Freetown, which is home to the armory and several embassies, said they heard gunshots and explosions. Otherswho were there said that shots were fired near a barracks in the Murray Town area, which is home to the navy, and outside of another military site in the capital. Since President Bio was re-elected in June, the political situation in Sierra Leone has stayed tight. He just barely avoided having to hold a run-off election. International monitors have said that the count isn't clear or consistent, and they have also said that violence and threats were made during the process.
The Ministry of Information put a curfew in place right away after the attack. People all over the country are being "strongly" told to stay inside, and all flights to and from the country's only foreign airport have been canceled.
The BBCsaw soldiers in Freetown in the morning carrying heavy weapons in a seized police car and shouting that they were going to "clean Sierra Leone." It's not clear how many prisoners were let go, but videos on social media show a lot of people running away from the area around Freetown's Central Pademba Road jail. After the curfew was announced, the West African country's civil aviation body told airlines to reschedule their flights. At the same time, a soldier on the border with neighboring Guinea told Reuters that they had been told to close the border.
Sierra Leone is still recovering from a civil war that killed over 50,000 people and hurt hundreds of thousands more from 1991 to 2002. In August 2022, at least 21 citizens and six police officers were killed in protests against the government. Based on Bio, the protests were an attempt to get rid of the government.
President Julius Maada Bio of Sierra Leone revealed the security breach in a post on his official Xsocial media account on Sunday. He said that the attack was carried out by a group of "renegades." Bio said calm had been “restored” and police were still working to "root out the remnant of the fleeing renegades."He told everyone in the West African country to work together to protect freedom.
“„The PEACE of our beloved NATION is PRICELESS and we shall continue to protect the peace and security of Sierra Leone against the forces that wish to truncate our much-cherished stability.- Julius Maada Bio
Since he won the election five months ago, Bio has continued to face criticism because the economy is so bad. Sierra Leone has more than 7 million people, and almost 60% of them are poor. Youth unemployment is also one of the biggest in West Africa.
Sierra Leone has been in trouble for a while now because of a string of military coups that have hurt freedom in the area. Since 2020, there have been eight military coups in West and Central Africa. These have happened in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Guinea, among other places.
Sierra Leone has put in place a national curfew after gunmen attacked a military barracks in Freetown, the country's capital. This comes after months of unrest in the West African country following the elections. On Sunday, Sierra Leone's government said they had stopped the attack on the main Wilberforce barracks for the troops and were in charge of the situation.
Before, the government said that security forces had stopped "renegade soldiers" who tried to break into a military armory in Freetown early Sunday morning. A national curfew was put in place. The attackers went after a jail and a police station and gunfire could be heard all over the city.