Conakry, Guinea – The U.S. Embassy on Tuesday ordered staff members’ families to leave Guinea immediately and urged all other U.S. citizens to go as well, offering seats on a U.S. government plane flying to Senegal.
A strict curfew kept residents inside their homes in this West African capital after Guinea’s president declared martial law, but sporadic gunfire persisted as some youths tried to renew protests that killed dozens in recent days.
President Lansana Conte told the military to “take all necessary measures” to restore order. Opposition leaders and trade unions have accused Conte of violating a power-sharing agreement and demanded he step down.
At least 27 people were killed in three days of protests and clashes with security forces – most from gunshot wounds, according to medical officials and witnesses. Conakry’s League of Human Rights said it had tallied at least 57 deaths in the country.
The United Nations and the African Union condemned the killing of civilians and called for an independent inquiry.
The violence started Saturday, a day after Conte appointed his close ally Eugene Camara, a Cabinet member since 1997, as prime minister. The post had been left vacant since Conte, who seized power in a 1984 coup, fired Prime Minister Cellou Dalein Diallo in April.
Last month, Conte agreed to appoint a consensus prime minister who was not a member of his government in a deal to end a two-week national strike that brought Guinea to an economic standstill and sparked clashes that left at least 59 dead.
Many said he sidestepped the power-sharing agreement by naming a confidant, and angry youths took to the streets, throwing stones and ransacking buildings. Security forces fired into the crowds. At least one radio station was raided by government forces, and the U.N. World Food Program said three of its warehouses were looted.
Guinea’s 10 million people are impoverished and many live without the most basic public services, even though the country has half the world’s reserves of bauxite, used to produce aluminum.
