The Guinean national army soldiers are allegedly abusing civilians, as they continue to track down Captain Moussa Dadis Camara’s aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Aboubacar Toumba Diakite who tried on Thursday to assassinate the junta leader.
The manhunt launched against Lt Toumba Diakite seems to be a pretext for a series of abuses in Conakry. On Monday afternoon in Cosa, a district in the suburbs of the capital, the minister in charge of Presidential Security, Jean Claude Pivi, alias Coplan and his men made a forceful raid in which a local religious leader and a woman were shot. Several other people were also arrested during the operation.
In Kipe, another district in the outer suburbs of Conakry, a group of soldiers on board three Toyota pickup trucks were seen hunting down students of the Kipe High School, causing the interruption of all classes in neighboring schools. Later on, other people were arrested in the same district for questioning, eyewitnesses said.
A taxi driver on Tuesday told APA that he saw on Monday ‘Red Berets’ snatching mobile phones from ordinary citizens, which shows how violent some of those men in uniform are on civilians, under the excuse that they are on the trail of Toumba Diakité, the junta’s most wanted man.
The Territorial Administration and Political Affairs Minister, Frederic Kolie, in a night broadcast on national radio called for calm and vigilance. He also urged local officials, prefects, and governors of the country’s different provinces to help in the manhunt, by stepping up border surveillance.
Bah Oury, the Vice President of ‘Union des forces démocratiques de Guinée’ (Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea, UFDG,) also in charge of political affairs in the opposition coalition, told APA that he “would prefer the junta not to involve ordinary citizens in this internal military issue, regardless of their political biases.”
Source African Press Agency
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