Coup Atlas Research Database
← Back to explorer
43809052021SuccessfulMilitary coup

Guinea, 2021 — military coup

Guinea (GIN)West Africa, AfricaSeptember 5, 2021

Event Summary

On 5 September 2021 special forces in Guinea seized President Alpha Conde in a coup, ending the rule of a leader who had clung to power through a disputed third term. Conde, once a longtime opposition figure and Guinea's first democratically elected president when he took office in 2010, had pushed through a new constitution by referendum in 2020 that let him bypass term limits and win a third term, a move that set off deadly protests. On the morning of 5 September the Groupement des forces speciales, an elite unit that Conde himself had created in 2018 and that had defended his rule, surrounded the presidential palace in the capital Conakry.

After a shootout with pro-government forces, the special forces under Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, a former French Foreign Legionnaire, captured Conde and held him in military detention. Doumbouya appeared on state television, draped in the national flag, to announce that the constitution and government were dissolved and the borders closed, declaring that the duty of a soldier is to save the country and that power would no longer be entrusted to one man. Crowds cheered the news in Conakry.

The takeover was condemned by ECOWAS, the African Union, and the wider international community, which demanded Conde's release, and Guinea was suspended from both bodies. Doumbouya was sworn in as interim president in October 2022.

Films & Footage

Soldiers in the streets of Conakry during the September 5, 2021 coup.
Soldiers in the streets of Conakry during the September 5, 2021 coup. Photo: Aboubacarkhoraa · CC BY-SA 4.0
Crowds celebrate in Conakry after the ouster of President Alpha Condé, September 2021.
Crowds celebrate in Conakry after the ouster of President Alpha Condé, September 2021. Photo: Aboubacarkhoraa · CC BY-SA 4.0

Archival media is credited to its holding collection and license. Media sourcing policy →

Researched Details

Researched

Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.

Target identified in Coup Atlas research: President Alpha Conde, captured by special forces and held in military detention; deposed over his disputed third term
RESEARCHED NAME
Key figures
Mamady Doumbouya (special forces colonel who led the coup)
Alpha Conde (deposed president)

Sources

On 5 September 2021 President Alpha Conde was captured by Guinea's armed forces in a coup after gunfire in the capital Conakry, and special forces commander Mamady Doumbouya announced on state television the dissolution of the constitution and government; Conde had in 2020 changed the constitution by referendum to allow himself a third term.
SOURCE REVIEWED Wikipedia, 2021 Guinean coup d'etat open source ↗
Guinea's special forces arrested President Alpha Conde on 5 September after skirmishes in a government district in Conakry, and Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, head of the army's special forces and coup leader, announced the government's dissolution and the suspension of the constitution.
SOURCE REVIEWED International Crisis Group open source ↗
Colonel Doumbouya, a 41-year-old former French legionnaire and commander of the elite Special Forces Group, ousted Conde proclaiming that the duty of a soldier is to save the country, in the country's third coup since independence in 1958, and the ruling junta known as the National Rally and Development Committee detained Conde and other top officials.
SOURCE REVIEWED CSIS open source ↗
Conde, in power for more than a decade, had seen his popularity plummet since he sought a third term, saying term limits did not apply to him, and after he was deposed large crowds cheered the overthrow, while international organizations including the African Union, ECOWAS, the EU, and the UN denounced the coup and called for his release.
SOURCE REVIEWED Wikipedia, 2021 Guinean coup d'etat open source ↗

Editorial Note

Coded fate arrested or jailed is verified: Conde was captured and held in military detention. Coded as a military coup on 09-05, matching the sources. The distinctive irony, well documented, is that the coup was carried out by the very special forces unit (GFS) that Conde had created and relied on, under Doumbouya, whom Conde had trusted. The trigger context is Conde's own third-term power grab: the 2020 referendum bypassing term limits, which had already provoked deadly protests. This ties to the Guinea 2008 record (the Dadis Camara junta after Conte's death); the 2010 election that Conde won followed that period. Part of the West African coup wave with Mali and Chad.

How It Unfolded

Hand-coded by Coup Atlas from the sources on this page, using a fixed list of tactics. Only events we have read through carry this coding, so most records do not have it yet.

Led by
Military
How long it took
Under a day — resolved within 24 hours
  • Troop movements in the capital or key cities
  • Detention or expulsion of the incumbent leader
  • Suspension of the constitution or dissolution of institutions
  • Mass mobilization of civilians (for or against)

Cross-Reference

Datasets agree. At least two of the three reference datasets we check against carry this event, and none of them disagrees about its date or its result.

Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:

Cline Center id
43809052021
Powell & Thyne id
PT-GIN-2021
Albrecht/Koehler/Schutz (CAM) id
CAM-438-2021-09-05

How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.

Outcome and Target

Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: President Alpha Conde, captured by special forces and held in military detention; deposed over his disputed third term.

Baseline coding: Incumbent executive removed from power. Recorded leader fate: deposed; arrested or jailed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.

Baseline Dataset Citation
Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset, v2.2.2
Peyton, Buddy, Joseph Bajjalieh, Michael Martin, and Andrea Gerald. 2026. Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset. Cline Center for Advanced Social Research. V.2.2.2. February 17. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. doi: 10.13012/B2IDB-9651987_V10
Open dataset DOI ↗
⚑ This citation establishes the coded baseline record; use the claim-level sources above for the researched narrative.

Baseline Source-Document Entries

CNBC

“Elite Guinea Army Unit Say They Dissolved The Government And The Constitution Of The West African Country,” September 5, 2021

Reuters

“Elite Guinea Army Unit Says it Has Toppled President,” September 6, 2021

Sky News

“Guinea: Soldiers Claim to Have Seized Power and Dissolved Government as President ‘Detained’,” September 6, 2021

Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Guinean_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →

Know something about this event?
Tips are reviewed against sources before anything is added.

Related Records

Guinea — Military coup, 20082008-12-23SuccessfulWest AfricaGuinea — Military coup, 20112011-07-19AttemptedWest AfricaGuinea — Military coup, 19841984-04-03SuccessfulWest Africa