In Sierra Leone, a West African country, President Julius Maada Bio Imposing a nationwide curfew After an armed attack on a military base and prison in the capital, Freetown, on Sunday. For hours, the government claimed to have the situation under control, but many testimonies spoke of explosions, gunshots, and groups of armed men in the city. Currently, the news received is mostly confused and fragmented, and it is not clear whether the attacks are part of a larger operation against the government.
In the morning, Information Minister Chernor Bah announced that some unidentified people tried to enter an army weapons depot in the Wilberforce neighborhood, where various embassies are located, among others, and were rejected. And shortly thereafter he was there armed attack To the city’s main prison: A government official who requested anonymity told… Reuters Those responsible for the attack had escaped several people from prison. And also an official working in the prison L said BBC News Some prisoners escaped after the attack.
It is currently unclear how many people have fled. The Freetown prison has a capacity of 324 people, but in 2019 it held more than two thousand people, according to a US State Department report quoted by Reuters. Reuters. About one million people live in Freetown, about one-eighth of Sierra Leone’s total population.
Journalist from Reuters He interviewed some armed and masked people he met in Freetown on Sunday. “We will clean up this community. One of them said: “We are not angry with the civilians who should continue to live normally.”
In the past few hours, several journalists reported hearing several gunshots after the government said it had the situation under control. Journalist from News agency He says He heard gunfire several hours after the government’s first statements, adding that it was not clear who fired the shots and whether the government had made any arrests.
In June Bio He was re-elected For a second term. But according to international observers from the European Union and the United States, the elections were held without the necessary transparency conditions on the part of the electoral authorities. Pio is a former soldier who participated in two coups during the civil war of the 1990s until 2002; In 1996, he ruled the country at the head of the military junta. Writes in August BBC NewsSome soldiers were arrested on charges of organizing a coup to overthrow Bio.
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