FREETOWN, Nov 26 – Sierra Leone said it had pushed “renegade soldiers” who attempted to break into a military armoury in Freetown during the early hours of Sunday back to the outskirts of the capital and had restored calm, after imposing a nationwide curfew.
The West African country’s civil aviation authority urged airlines to reschedule flights after the curfew was declared, while a soldier on its frontier with neighbouring Guinea told Reuters they had been instructed to shut the border.
A Reuters journalist, who earlier witnessed an armed group of men commandeer a police vehicle near the Wilberforce barracks, said nearby streets were mostly empty.
“We’ll clean this society. We know what we are up to. We are not after any ordinary civilians who should go about their normal business,” one of the masked men, who was dressed in military fatigues, said before driving away.
Sierra Leone has been tense since President Julius Maada Bio was re-elected in June, a result rejected by the main opposition candidate and questioned by international partners including the United States and the European Union.
In August 2022, at least 21 civilians and six police officers were killed in anti-government protests in Sierra Leone, which is still recovering from a 1991-2002 civil war in which more than 50,000 were killed and hundreds maimed. Bio said the protests were an attempt to overthrow the government.
Sierra Leone’s interior minister David Taluva told Reuters that the assailants had attacked a police barracks after running out of ammunition and had seized more arms from police officers.
