Clashes broke out Thursday, February 16 in several neighborhoods in the suburbs of Conakry between demonstrators and law enforcement, forcing the Guinean authorities to requisition the army to restore calm. The National Front for the Defense of the Constitution (FNDC) had called for demonstrations despite the ban on all gatherings by the military. The opposition collective, officially dissolved by the Guinean authorities, is calling for a return to constitutional order. According to his report, this violence cost the lives of two young people.
With our correspondent in Conakry, Mouctar Bah
Certain neighborhoods in the suburbs of Conakry such as Kagbélen, Sonfonia, Cosa and Bambéto were the scene of clashes between young people and security forces on Thursday 16 February. In these popular neighborhoods, the epicenter of all the protests under the different regimes that have succeeded in Guinea since the end of the 1990s, barricades have been erected and trash cans overturned on the main arteries.
But the massive deployment of the police prevented the demonstrators from gathering at the Tanerie, in the suburbs of Conakry, the starting point of the march. They were dispersed by the police and the gendarmerie with tear gas. Gunshots were even heard.
During the clashes, journalists covering the demonstration were molested and insulted by soldiers requisitioned to lend a hand to the security forces. The demonstrators demanded, among other things, the release of their leaders who had been detained for several months, the transparent management of the transition, an inclusive inter-Guinean dialogue and a return to constitutional order.
According to a report provided by the FNDC, two young men died in these scuffles: Ibrahima Diallo, 16, at Sonfonia Fare II, and Abdul Karim Bah, 19, at Concasseur, Hamdallaye. The opposition group has 58 injured and around fifty arrests.