Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio has vowed to crush all acts of “terrorism” being allegedly perpetrated against the state and accused the main opposition All Peoples Congress (APC) of being behind it.
Bio, in a televised address to the nation at the weekend said he had ordered security forces to take tougher actions against anyone involved in the act which he described as premeditated and targeted at the state and public officials, an AFP report said.
He said the party’s silence over its members who allegedly took part in “acts of terrorist violence, senseless loss of lives, injuries and wanton destruction of public and personal property is truly disconcerting”.
Eleven people died in an attempted jail break and ensuing riot in the capital Freetown last month, after an inmate tested positive for coronavirus.
In another incident, fishermen attacked a police station and a health clinic south of Freetown on Wednesday, after authorities limited the number of boats allowed to leave port for social-distancing reasons.
Sierra Leone has recorded 257 cases of coronavirus to date, with 17 fatalities.
Sierra Leone was already badly hit by the 2014-2016 West African Ebola crisis, which killed almost 4,000 people in the country.
Violent incidents also occurred during that epidemic, with some distrustful inhabitants attacking medical workers trying to combat the disease.
On Friday, Bio — a former soldier who briefly led a military junta more than two decades ago — suggested that the APC was aiming to make Sierra Leone ungovernable.
The president took office in 2018 after a tumultuous election campaign which ended a decade-long spell in power by the APC.
The unrests in the last two weeks commenced with a riot in the maximum prison in Freetown, which claimed 12 lives. Then there were riots in at least two other districts, amidst conflicting reports about the number of deaths.
The development raised concerns both locally and internationally about a possibility of Sierra Leone slipping back into conflict.
Sierra Leone was ravaged by a civil war between 1991 and 2002, which was blamed on decades of maladministration and tyranny.
The APC was in charge of the country when the war broke out.