Guinea-Bissau, 2022 — military coup attempt

Event Summary

On 1 February 2022 heavily armed assailants attacked the government palace in Bissau while President Umaro Sissoco Embalo was chairing a cabinet meeting, unleashing hours of intense gunfire in what Embalo denounced as a failed attack against democracy and an attempted coup that left many people dead. Guinea-Bissau, notorious as one of the world's most coup prone states and a major transit hub for South American cocaine bound for Europe, had a decades long history of military interventions, assassinations, and instability; Embalo, a former army general who had taken office in 2020, framed the assault as an effort to kill him and his government, possibly linked to the drug trade and to figures he was targeting. Gunmen surrounded and stormed the presidential palace, exchanging heavy fire with security forces for about five hours before loyalist troops regained control; Embalo emerged unharmed, saying the attackers had intended to assassinate the entire cabinet.

Several members of the security forces and attackers were killed. The president survived and remained in office, though he would face further alleged coup attempts and mounting accusations from critics that he used such episodes to consolidate his own power.