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ABUJA, 27 Nov: Sierra Leone\u2019s president said most leaders of attacks on the nation\u2019s main military barracks and prisons had been arrested and normalcy had returned across the country after a 24-hour curfew was relaxed to a dusk-to-dawn lockdown.<\/p>\n
The attacks early Sunday morning surprised residents and security forces in the West African nation and raised fears of a possible coup in a troubled region.<\/p>\n
But \u201cmost of the leaders\u201d of the attacks now have been arrested and \u201ccalm has been restored,\u201d President Julius Maada Bio said in a Sunday night address.<\/p>\n
Residents in the capital city of Freetown were awoken by sounds of heavy gunfire as gunmen tried to break into the key armory in the country\u2019s largest military barracks, located near the presidential villa.<\/p>\n
They engaged in sustai-ned gunfire with security forces and targeted major detention centers \u2013 including the central prison holding more than 2,000 inmates \u2013 and freed or abducted an unconfirmed number of people, authorities said.<\/p>\n
Videos on social media appeared to show dozens of inmates pouring into the streets to hurriedly escape around the same time that security forces were engaged in a shootout with the attackers on the outskirts of the city.<\/p>\n
The attacks deepened political tension in West and Central Africa where coups have surged, with eight military takeovers since 2020, including in Niger and Gabon this year. West Africa\u2019s regional economic bloc ECOWAS \u2014 of which Sierra Leone is a member \u2014 described the attacks as a plot \u201cto acquire arms and disturb the peace and constitutional order\u201d in the country.<\/p>\n
\nThe attacks were \u201can attempt to undermine the peace and stability we have worked so hard to achieve,\u201d said Bio, whose reelection in a disputed vote in June has raised political tensions in the country still healing from a 11-year civil war that ended more than two decades ago. (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ABUJA, 27 Nov: Sierra Leone\u2019s president said most leaders of attacks on the nation\u2019s main military barracks and prisons had been arrested and normalcy had returned across the country after a 24-hour curfew was relaxed to a dusk-to-dawn lockdown. The attacks early Sunday morning surprised residents and security forces in the West African nation and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-229401","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229401\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}