Sierra Leone: 20 killed as militants attack army barracks

An army spokesman stated on Monday that twenty persons, including thirteen soldiers, were murdered in the gunman’s attack on a military barracks and other sites in Sierra Leone on Sunday.

When the attackers struck a prison, a police station, and barracks early on Sunday morning, shooting erupted around the nation’s capital, Freetown, putting the West African nation into a state of terror.

Later, the administration claimed that “renegade soldiers” had been resisted and thus was to blame for the attack.

In a speech on Sunday, President Julius Maada Bio stated that the majority of the attack’s commanders had been taken into custody and that attempts were on to capture the other ones. He indicated that an investigation has been started.

Colonel Issa Bangura, an Army spokesperson, told news agency Reuters that three attackers, a police officer, a civilian, and a private security employee were among the other 20 fatalities. He stated there were three arrests and eight injuries.

Shops and businesses reopened in Freetown on Monday afternoon, after the government lowered the curfew from an all-day one to a midnight one that ran from 2100-0600 GMT.

After Bio was re-elected in June, a move that was questioned by the US and the EU as well as rejected by the leading opposition candidate, tensions have arisen in Sierra Leone, a country still rebuilding from a civil conflict that claimed over 50,000 lives between 1991 and 2002.

During anti-government demonstrations in August 2022, at least 21 people and six police personnel lost their lives.

On Sunday, the gunmen also freed prisoners from the primary prison located on Pademba Road. On Monday, residents of the community went about their daily lives while Bio’s Chief Minister David Moinina Sengeh paid them a visit.

(With agency inputs)