CONAKRY, Guinea — Guinea’s health minister on Friday denied reports that this West African nation’s No. 2 leader was heading to Senegal to be hospitalized, rejecting rumors he was being evacuated for a medical emergency.
The confusion over Vice President and Defense Minister Gen. Sekouba Konate’s health underscores just how much Guinea is on edge. The country has been in limbo since its junta leader was shot last month in an assassination attempt and evacuated to a military hospital in Morocco.
Guinea Health Minister Abdoulaye Cherif Diaby said over state radio that Konate was heading to Senegal’s capital, Dakar, “for an official visit, but he is not sick. He’s doing well.”
Bamba Ndiaye, a spokesman for Senegal’s president, also said the trip due late Friday had nothing to do with any illness. He told The Associated Press that Konate would meet President Abdoulaye Wade but called it “a private visit for consultations.”
Earlier, two officials told AP that Konate was being taken to Senegal and suffering from cirrhosis of the liver. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
The contradictory reports came as some Guineans are questioning whether the country’s wounded junta leader, Capt. Moussa “Dadis” Camara, will ever return to the helm of the mineral-rich nation. The rumors that Konate, too, could be hospitalized came two days after he announced a new civilian-led transition government will be put in place in Camara’s absence.
On Friday, Guinea’s opposition coalition met to discuss naming an opposition prime minister to govern in a transition government.
Guinea has been effectively leaderless since Camara was airlifted to a Moroccan military hospital following the assassination attempt Dec. 3. Although Konate had been coordinating the junta’s activities, the government had repeatedly declined to refer to him as the interim president, sowing fears of a power vacuum.
