Eight civilians and two policemen have been killed in Guinea’s capital, Conakry in clashes between security forces and opposition supporters after a tense presidential election with results showing President Alpha Conde in the lead.
Guinea’s security ministry announced the death toll following last weekend’s vote.
“This strategy of chaos was orchestrated to jeopardise the elections of October 18,” the ministry said in a statement, adding numerous people were wounded in the unrest, without providing a specific figure.
Opposition supporters have burned barricades in the streets after initial results showed Conde ahead in vote-counting.
“At least three people died today that I saw with my own eyes … and about 10 others were wounded,” Mamadou Keganan Doumbouya, a security official, told reporters.
Hadjiratou Barry, a resident of an area where clashes were taking place, also said her brother had been shot dead. A local doctor, who declined to be named, said he received two dead bodies and nine injured people at his clinic.
Supporters of President Conde’s main rival, Cellou Dalein Diallo, set alight piles of old furniture and burned tyres in some opposition neighbourhoods of Conakry. Police dispersed protesters with tear gas.
“Clashes broke out on the Prince’s Road. A policeman was killed,” Security Minister Damantang Albert Camara said, referring to a major road in the capital that runs through opposition strongholds.
Diallo has claimed victory in the vote based on his campaign’s tallies.
The push for a third term for President Conde, 82, has sparked repeated protests over the past year, resulting in dozens of deaths. He claims a constitutional referendum in March reset his two-term limit; his opponents say he is breaking the law by holding onto power.
In a social media post, President Conde appealed for “calm and serenity while awaiting the outcome of the electoral process”.
Earlier, Monitors from the African Union and the West African regional bloc had said Guinea’s recent presidential election was conducted properly, amid rising tensions ahead of the release of official results.
The announcement came a day after leading opposition challenger Cellou Dalein Diallo said he had won the first round of the elections after suggesting the poll was rigged, comments that set a showdown with incumbent President Alpha Conde. Diallo’s claim was swiftly rejected by the electoral commission, which called it “premature” and “void”.
Addressing reporters in the capital, Conakry, Augustin Matata Ponyo, the AU’s head of mission in Guinea, said the ballot took place “in transparency”.
Jose Maria Neves, the head of the monitoring mission of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) regional bloc, agreed the voting process was lawful and urged candidates to “use legal channels to settle election disputes”.
After decades as an opposition activist, Conde became Guinea’s first democratically elected president in 2010 and was re-elected five years later, but rights groups now accuse him of veering towards authoritarianism. Diallo was formerly a prime minister under authoritarian leader Lansana Conte. He unsuccessfully challenged Conde in both 2010 and 2015, in elections his party is convinced were rigged.
