The Gambian government on Wednesday said it had thwarted a coup attempt the previous day and arrested four soldiers.
There was no immediate confirmation of the purported plot from other sources and the capital, Banjul, was calm.
“Based on intelligence reports that some soldiers of the Gambian army were plotting to overthrow the democratically elected government of [Gambian] President Adama Barrow, the [armed forces] in a swift military operation ... yesterday arrested four soldiers linked to this alleged coup plot,” the government said in a statement. “The apprehended soldiers are currently helping the military police with their investigations. Meanwhile, the army is in pursuit of three more alleged accomplices.”
Photo: AFP
Gambian police said in a separate statement that they had questioned Momodou Sabally, a former Gambian minister of presidential affairs under former Gambian president Yahya Jammeh, after the release of a video suggesting Barrow would be overthrown before the next local elections.
Scattered witness accounts reported soldier movements near the presidential headquarters in the center of the city on Tuesday evening, and rumors circulated during the night of a possible coup.
However, people interviewed by Agence France-Presse said they had seen no disturbance.
Photo: AFP
Sulayman Njie, 25, a youth advocate and entrepreneur, said he had been attending a national youth conference in Banjul until 4am.
“We did not see anything unusual,” he said.
Momodou Lamin Bah, a Gambian lawmaker whose constituency is in the northern part of the capital, said he had also been attending events at the conference, but witnessed nothing out of the ordinary.
“There is no security presence here because everything is normal,” he said.
The West African state is a fragile democracy, still scarred by Jammeh’s 22 years in office.
Jammeh was defeated in presidential elections in December 2016 by Barrow, then a political newcomer, and fled to Equatorial Guinea, but retains clout back home.
Addressing supporters at a rally in the Gambia on Saturday via telephone, he said he would return soon and would lead the country once more.
Barrow was in December last year re-elected for a second five-year term with 53 percent of the vote.
He won a narrow victory in legislative elections in April, but fell short of an absolute majority in the 58-seat parliament.
The government urged citizens, residents and diplomatic personnel to “carry on with their normal activities as the situation is under total control and there is no need to panic.”
The Gambia’s international partners are exerting pressure on him to push ahead with reforms to bolster the country’s democracy, including an overhaul of the security services.
The Gambia is the smallest country on the African continent, straddling the river that gives it its name.
It has a tiny Atlantic coastline, but is otherwise surrounded by Senegal.
The densely populated nation was a British colony from 1888 until independence in 1965.
Its first president, former Gambian prime minister Dawda Jawara, was overthrown by Jammeh, then a young army officer, in a bloodless coup in 1994.
Jammeh ruled with an iron grip before his surprising election loss in December 2016. He initially refused to accept defeat, but fled into exile after neighboring countries intervened.
In 2017, the Gambian Truth, Reconciliation and Reparation Commission was set up to investigate crimes committed under Jammeh.
It heard nearly 400 witnesses, including victims and former “Junglers,” or members of the regime’s death squads.
Its report, issued in November last year, recorded a litany of death squads, arbitrary arrests, torture and disappearances, and drew up a list of officials it said should be prosecuted.
The Economic Community of West African States on Wednesday said it “strongly condemns” the coup attempt and “stands firmly by the democratically elected government” in the Gambia.
West Africa has been shaken by a series of military power seizures since 2020, in Mali, Guinea and most recently in Burkina Faso.
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