Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres has condemned Sunday’s coup in Guinea, hours after military officials deposed Guinean President, Alpha Conde and announced a new government.
The coup, led by Colonel Mamadi Doumbouya saw the Guinean President held after rounds of shooting at the country’s Presidential Palace.
Guterres condemned the action on Sunday via his Twitter page, and said he’s monitoring the situation in the country. “I am personally following the situation in Guinea very closely. I strongly condemn any takeover of the government by force of the gun and call for the immediate release of President Alpha Conde, ” he tweeted.
The military in a statement on national television on Sunday said; “We are taking our destiny in our own hands,”
“The personalisation of political life is over. We will no longer entrust politics to one man, we will entrust it to the people.”
The Guinean defence Ministry has however denied that its government has been toppled, but the military had posted photos of the President being held and surrounded by soldiers.
“The presidential guard, supported by the loyalist and republican defence and security forces, contained the threat and repelled the group of assailants,”
Leader of the coup, Doumbouya is a former member of the French Foreign Legion trained at Flintock, the United States’ biggest annual military exercise in Africa.