A confusing series of events took place this past Sunday. A group of soldiers seemingly went rogue and attacked an armory. They were driven off but headed to a nearby prison and let out all the prisoners (including, reportedly, a famous rapper LAJ who was booted from the US for various crimes). After a shootout that left over 20 people dead, the government seemingly has control of the situation. Still, dozens of the assailants are at large and the government has imposed mandatory national curfew still.
It’s still quite unclear what happened but everyone has been using the dreaded word “coup”. There have of course been a series of coups across West Africa recently and Sierra Leone itself is no stranger to coups - actually the current President even led two coups himself and has signaled willingness to do it again in the future. He won a second term recently in what was most certainly an illegitimate election, so there are plenty of people upset with the status quo, but details on the motivations of the participants and whether this was even a real coup attempt are still to be forthcoming.
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Notes -
Sierra Leone
A confusing series of events took place this past Sunday. A group of soldiers seemingly went rogue and attacked an armory. They were driven off but headed to a nearby prison and let out all the prisoners (including, reportedly, a famous rapper LAJ who was booted from the US for various crimes). After a shootout that left over 20 people dead, the government seemingly has control of the situation. Still, dozens of the assailants are at large and the government has imposed mandatory national curfew still.
It’s still quite unclear what happened but everyone has been using the dreaded word “coup”. There have of course been a series of coups across West Africa recently and Sierra Leone itself is no stranger to coups - actually the current President even led two coups himself and has signaled willingness to do it again in the future. He won a second term recently in what was most certainly an illegitimate election, so there are plenty of people upset with the status quo, but details on the motivations of the participants and whether this was even a real coup attempt are still to be forthcoming.
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