Guinea’s capital was calm on Wednesday as soldiers secured the volatile city’s streets after breaking up a strike by disgruntled police that left at least four dead.
Police began the strike on Monday, firing weapons into the air to protest low wages and benefits. Soldiers overran the main police base in Conakry on Tuesday, engaging police in a gunfight, looting the facility and chasing off the strikers.
There was no sign of police on Wednesday and the strike appeared unresolved. Soldiers and the army’s paramilitary police took their place on the capital’s main roads as shops reopened and drivers lined up at petrol stations to fill their tanks.
Soldiers were also deployed at the entrance to the country’s main port, replacing customs police who had taken part in the strike and shut it down. It was unclear if there was any activity at the port on Wednesday.
Parents of those killed on Tuesday during the gunfight between police and soldiers said the dead included three police officers and one civilian.
At least seven people were treated for gunshot wounds at a hospital, said medical official Aminata Toure.
It was the second major dispute involving security forces in less than a month in Guinea. In late May, junior soldiers disgruntled over back pay fired in the air at military bases during a week-long revolt that ended when most of their demands were met.
Guinea has vast reserves of timber, gold, diamonds and bauxite, the raw material used to make aluminum. But its people have remained among the poorest in the world under the dictatorship of Lansana Conte, who took power in a 1984 coup. — Sapa-AP