“dozens of dead” in clashes during a football match

The clashes took place after a disputed refereeing decision on Sunday, causing supporters to invade the pitch.

Clashes between supporters during a football match on Sunday December 1 caused at least “dozens of dead” in N'Zérékoré, in the south-east of Guinea, medical sources told AFP. Angry supporters vandalized and set fire to the N'Zérékoré police station, according to witnesses. “It all started with a challenge to a decision by the referee. Supporters then invaded the playing area,” a witness told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity for his safety.

“There are a hundred dead,” a doctor from the regional hospital even told AFP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. “Bodies are lined up as far as the eye can see in the hospital. Others are lying on the floor in the corridors. The morgue is full,” he assured.

After a few hours without speaking, Prime Minister Bah Oury deplored on “the incidents that punctuated” this match. “(…) The government is monitoring developments in the situation and reiterates its call for calm so that hospital services are not hampered in providing first aid to the injured. (…]The government will publish a press release when “he will have collected all the relevant information on these unfortunate incidents”, he wrote on the social network.

According to the local and international press, it was a tournament dedicated to the head of the junta, General Mamadi Doumbouya, who came to power after a coup d'état in September 2021 and who has since become president. Such tournaments have multiplied in recent weeks in Guinea, in what are seen as events in support of a possible candidacy of Mr. Doumbouya in the next presidential election, scheduled for 2025. The junta had initially committed, under the international pressure, to give way to elected civilians before the end of 2024. She has since made it known that she would break her promise.

Several of Mr. Doumbouya's representatives recently said they were in favor of his candidacy in the next presidential election. But the “transition charter” established by the junta shortly after the coup requires that no member of the junta can run “neither in national elections nor in local elections”. The authorities indicated at the end of September that all the votes leading to the return of constitutional order would be held in 2025.

The junta seeks to silence all forms of dissent, banning demonstrations and critical media. Many opposition leaders have been arrested, indicted before judges or driven into exile. At the beginning of July, two leaders of a dissolved citizens' movement which demanded the return of civilians to power disappeared.