The fate of Guinea's President Alpha Condé is unclear after an unverified video showed him surrounded by soldiers, who said they had seized power.
They appeared on national TV claiming to have dissolved the government.
However, the defence ministry said the attempted takeover had been thwarted by the presidential guard. This follows hours of heavy gunfire near the presidential palace in the capital, Conakry.
If the coup is successful, it will mark the third time in five months that a West African nation has suffered a takeover.
In April, the president who had ruled Chad for three decadeswas killed on the battlefield and replaced by his son in what academics called a “covert coup.” In May, Mali’s vice president arrested the president, prime minister and defense minister in the country’s second coup within nine months.
Sunday’s coup in Guinea comes barely a year after the president, Alpha Condé, won a contentious third term after changing the Constitution, allowing him to stay in power beyond the two-term limit.
“We are no longer going to entrust politics to one man, we are going to entrust it to the people. We come only for that,” declared Col. Mamady Doumbouya, the Special Forces head, appearing on state television with Guinea’s national flag draped around his shoulders and members of the military surrounding him. He said it was “the duty of a soldier to save the country.”
The UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres, the African Union and the ECOWAS have condemned the apparent coup and demanded the immediate release of President Condé.
