Freetown Curfew Lifted After Armed Clashes

Sierra Leone’s President, Julius Maada Bio, announced that calm has been restored after armed clashes in Freetown, which he described as an attempt to destabilize the state.

Most of the perpetrators have been arrested and will be held accountable. Authorities have imposed a nationwide curfew until further notice, and checkpoints guarded by significant security forces were maintained.

No official human toll from the violence has been disclosed, but social media shows some men in uniforms seemingly under arrest at the rear or near a military pickup. A former member of the close protection of former President Ernest Bai Koroma (2007-2018) was one of the participants killed by security forces.

Civil aviation instructed airlines to reschedule flights after the lifting of the curfew, assuring that the airspace remained open. The events revived the specter of a new coup attempt in West Africa, which has seen such attempts in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and neighboring Guinea since 2020.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) spoke in a statement of an attempt to seize weapons from the arsenal but also to “disturb peace and constitutional order,” language commonly used for political coups. The local representation of the European Union expressed concern and called for “respect for constitutional order.”