2023-09-05 18:35:46
At the call of the Forces vives de Guinée, Guineans are demonstrating this September 5, almost everywhere across the Leprince highway. The Wanindara district, as usual, is the scene of violent clashes. In the Sonfonia-Rails and Cimenterie districts, further away, the FNDC deplored two deaths and several arrests following clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement officers during the night of September 4.
The National Committee of the Rally for Development (CNRD) is celebrating two years since it came to power. To make its mark on the day, the junta stormed the country’s main media, sponsoring a giant concert at the People’s Palace.
A procession of red berets, weapons in hand, perched on pick-ups and army armored vehicles, paraded on the Fidel Castro highway, accompanied by dozens of bikers committed to the cause. At the same time, on the Leprince highway, Hamdallaye-Kagbélen axis, there is confrontation. Young people, determined to respond to the call for demonstration issued by the Forces vives de Guinée, clash with the defense and security forces in many neighborhoods along Leprince. The latter want at all costs to prevent the anti CRND from gathering and expressing their disagreement with the current management of the transition. Clashes have been recorded at T8, Sonfonia-rails, Cosa, Bambéto, Hamdallaye and even in Wanindara. In this neighborhood, police, gendarmes and soldiers are deployed to prevent demonstrators from blocking the road, they also call on other young people who claim to be from the same neighborhood. At the Carrefour-market, they use tear gas, but leave it to this group of counter-demonstrators to confront the young people: “We are not helping the police, we are helping ourselves . We are doing it, because those who want to demonstrate here are from Kinifi (Lambanyi district, further west Editor’s note). They come here to annoy us, to cause trouble. They push the police to enter the neighborhood, hit and arrest innocent people,” explains Moussa Diouldé Diallo, one of the initiators of this movement. He accuses the demonstrators of having refused to listen to them: “We started by making them aware. They’ve been told to come with signs and stop on the sidewalk, but they won’t listen. We made them understand that we are against violence.”
But this version is not accepted by the demonstrators. They accuse the counter-demonstrators of having received money from the authorities: “These are young people who created a movement called Wandian224. They received from the agent to supposedly pacify the neighborhood. We learned that they were also promised money as part of the upcoming October 2 celebration. We are just trying to express our fed up,” retorts a demonstrator.
In the area, shops, pharmacies and gas stations remained closed, traffic was very fluid.
As we went live, the chases continued within the neighborhood.
Yacine Diallo
#Clashes #celebration