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The authorities in Sierra Leone mentioned on Sunday that that they had arrested many of the leaders of a thwarted effort to interrupt into one of many West African nation’s key army armories and barracks, hours after that they had declared a nationwide, open-ended curfew in response to the in a single day assaults.
The nation’s president, Julius Maada Bio, mentioned Sunday night that there had been “a breach of safety” at a number of locations within the capital, Freetown, together with the Wilberforce army barracks, the armory and the Pademba Highway Jail, the place some prisoners escaped.
The barracks are strategically positioned close to Mr. Bio’s residence, and the armory is likely one of the most essential locations the place weapons are stored.
Most leaders of the assaults had been arrested, Mr. Bio mentioned in an handle broadcast on a state-owned tv channel, and “calm has been restored.” He didn’t present particulars on who the attackers had been, and mentioned that safety operations and investigations had been persevering with.
The assaults had been an “try and undermine the peace and stability we fought so onerous to realize,” he mentioned.
The information reverberated throughout the area, which in recent times has endured a sequence of army coups. In Guinea, Sierra Leone’s neighbor, a junta guidelines regardless of worldwide efforts to revive civilian governments.
The political state of affairs in Sierra Leone has been tense since Mr. Bio, 59, a former army officer who took half in two coups throughout Sierra Leone’s civil warfare within the Nineteen Nineties, was re-elected this 12 months. The results of the vote was rejected by his principal opponent and questioned by some observers who cited a scarcity of transparency.
In his handle, Mr. Bio praised residents for “complying with the safety measures,” and referred to as on everybody “to stay vigilant and to cooperate with the safety forces.”
According to local journalists, heavy gunfire was heard early Sunday in Freetown, and troopers with rocket-propelled grenades and rifles might be seen establishing army blockades in some strategic components of town. A flurry of movies posted on social media purported to point out prisoners launched from Pademba Highway Jail.
The Financial Group of West African States, the regional bloc often known as ECOWAS, which incorporates Sierra Leone, said in a statement that it had realized “with utter disgust” of the “plot by sure people to amass arms and disturb the peace and constitutional order in Sierra Leone.” It condemned their actions and referred to as for the arrest and prosecution of the culprits.
America Embassy condemned “within the strongest attainable phrases” Sunday’s tried break-in and urged residents to cooperate with authorities safety forces. “Such actions don’t have any justification,” it mentioned in a statement.
Beneath Mr. Bio’s management, an extra a million kids in Sierra Leone have begun attending faculty. However the nation has been fighting document ranges of inflation and unemployment, and a number of the highest ranges of meals insecurity in West Africa. He has additionally been accused of overseeing violent repression of protests, together with in the summertime of 2022, when greater than two dozen individuals died in clashes amid demonstrations over rising costs.
Joseph Johnson contributed reporting.
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