Sao Tome and Principe, 2022 — military coup attempt

Event Summary

The dataset records an event coded as an attempted coup in Sao Tome and Principe on 24 to 25 November 2022, when armed men attacked the army headquarters in the capital in an overnight assault that the government said it had thwarted. The tiny two island nation off the coast of Central Africa, one of Africa's smallest and least populous states, had a history of occasional coups and mutinies despite its general reputation for relative stability. In the pre dawn hours, a group of assailants stormed the headquarters of the armed forces in Sao Tome, engaging in a gun battle with soldiers; the prime minister, Patrice Trovoada, announced that a coup attempt had been foiled and that the situation was under control, with the attackers detained.

Four people connected to the attack later died in custody, prompting allegations of extrajudicial killings and an international outcry, with calls for an investigation into their deaths. The government maintained that it had put down a genuine coup attempt led by former figures seeking to seize power. The elected government survived, and Trovoada remained in office, but the episode and the deaths in custody cast a shadow over the island nation's politics.