Coup d’etat in Guinea, President Conde’s whereabouts unknown

Soldiers said in a television broadcast on Sunday that the had taken countries of the Guinea’s affairs, signaling a military coup.

The whereabout of the country’s president, Alpha Conde is still unknown as gunshots were reportedly fired in the country’s capital of Conakry.

Guinea’s Special Forces said on Sunday, they had captured President Conde who they say they had kept in detention.

The leader of the the Coup d’etat, Col. Mamady Doumbouya, said the 83-year-old Condé was in custody following hours of gunfire in the capital, Conakry, and warnings for people to stay indoors.

Doumniuya, while announcing the coup in a video, added that the government and the country’s constitution and institutions has been ‘dissolved’.

“We have decided after having taken the president, who is currently with us, to dissolve the current constitution, to dissolve the institutions; we have also decided to dissolve the government and the closure of land and air borders.

“The personalization of political life is over. We will no longer entrust politics to one man, we will entrust it to the people,” Doumbouya said.

READ ALSO: GUINEA: Conde coasting home to victory, as heavy gunfire rocks Conakry

Doumbouya, who has headed a special forces unit in the military, said he was acting in the best interests of the nation of over 12.7 million people.

“The duty of a soldier is to save the country,” he said.

Heavy gunfire had earlier broken out near the presidential palace in the capital Conakry on Sunday morning, with several sources saying an elite national army unit led by a former French legionnaire, Mamady Doumbouya, was behind the unrest.

In the video which was also widely circulated on social networks but has not been broadcast on national television, the coup plotters President Conde is being treated with dignity as no soldier has the authority to mistreat him.

Beaming the video on the President, one of the soldiers asked him if he has been mistreated, but Conde who was, in jeans and a shirt on a sofa, refused to answer them.

But the country’s Ministry of Defense, in a statement, said that “the insurgents (had) spread fear” in Conakry before taking the direction of the presidential palace, but that “the presidential guard, supported by the defense and security forces, loyalists and republicans, have contained the threat and pushed back the group of attackers.”

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