Sierra Leone\u2019s President Julius Maada Bio declared a nationwide curfew Sunday after gunmen attacked the military’s main and largest barracks in the West African nation’s capital, raising fears of a breakdown of order amid a surge of coups in the region.<\/p>\n
The unidentified gunmen attacked the military armory within the Wilberforce barracks in the capital, Freetown, early morning, Bio said in a statement posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, adding that they were driven back by security forces and \u201ccalm has been restored.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the combined team of our Security Forces continue to root out the remnant of the fleeing renegades, a nationwide curfew has been declared and citizens are encouraged to stay indoors,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
The country’s Ministry of Information and Education also said in a statement the government and security forces are \u201cin control\u201d of the situation.<\/p>\n
No details have been immediately given about the gunmen or the reason for the attack.<\/p>\n
Videos online, that went viral, reportedly showed soldiers patrolling Freetwon’s empty streets and captured the loud blasts of gunshots.<\/p>\n
West Africa’s regional economic bloc of ECOWAS \u2014 of which Sioerra Leon is a member \u2014 described the incident as a plot \u201cto acquire arms and disturb the peace and constitutional order\u201d in the country. \u201cECOWAS reiterates its zero tolerance for unconstitutional change of government,\u201d the bloc said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Sierra Leon’s president was reelected for a second term in June in a disputed vote in which the main opposition party the electoral commission of conspiring with his party to rig the results.<\/p>\n
It was the country\u2019s fifth presidential election since the end of a brutal 11-year civil war \u2014 more than two decades ago \u2014 which left tens of thousands dead and destroyed the country\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n
Bio continues to face criticism because of debilitating economic conditions. Nearly 60% of Sierra Leone\u2019s population of more than seven million are facing poverty, with youth unemployment being one of the highest in West Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sierra Leone\u2019s President Julius Maada Bio declared a nationwide curfew Sunday after gunmen attacked the military’s main and largest barracks in the West African nation’s capital, raising fears of a breakdown of order amid a surge of coups in the region. The unidentified gunmen attacked the military armory within the Wilberforce barracks in the capital, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10013,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":3,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"AP","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"0","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"0","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"0","show_popup_post":"0","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,1129,27],"tags":[269,1770],"class_list":["post-10012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-security","category-west-africa","tag-military-coup","tag-sierra-leone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}