One killed in protest against petrol prices under Guinea military rule

The Gambia, a West African country, has signed a number of agreements with Equatorial Guinea to improve commercial and diplomatic ties.

The agreements were signed on Sunday by Adama Barrow, President of Gambia, who is attending the African Union Summit, and his host, Equatorial Guinean President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, according to a statement released by the Gambia’s State House on Tuesday.

A young guy was shot dead in Conakry, Guinea’s capital, on the fringes of a protest over rising petrol prices, according to his family.

“Thierno Mamadou Diallo was shot in the head” on Wednesday, according to the victim’s sister, Halimatou Diallo, according to AFP.

The death of a 19-year-old has been confirmed by police and a public prosecutor, who have agreed to launch an investigation.

Since Colonel Mamady Doumbouya seized control from former president Alpha Conde in September last year, it is one of the first civilian deaths linked to skirmishes between security forces and demonstrators.

Protests against the former president’s plan to run for a third term erupted often in the two years leading up to the coup.

During that time, human rights organisations claim that security forces killed hundreds of civilian protesters. Guinea has been relatively calm since then, until last week’s announcement of a gasoline price hike.

Diallo was shot while out in the Hamdallaye district, where young people were protesting fuel price hikes, according to his relatives.

When young people began hurling stones at a passing column of police and gendarmes, his sister stated he got caught in the crossfire.

“In the midst of the chaos, my brother was shot in the head,” she explained.

Tahirou Diallo, an adoptive sister, said her brother was not participating in the protest.

“I learnt with bitterness of the loss of a young guy named Theirno, aged 19, who died in circumstances not yet clarified,” public prosecutor Alphonse Charles Wright told reporters.

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Mory Kaba, a police spokesperson, told AFP that the circumstances of his death were still unknown.

He stated, “We will initiate an investigation.”

The National Front for the Defense of the Constitution (FNDC), a Guinean coalition opposed to Conde’s dictatorship, said in a statement that Doumbouya’s earlier commitment “not to commit the same (killings) as his predecessors” contrasted with “the bloody suppression” of Wednesday’s demonstrations.

The junta banned any public demonstrations in May, saying it would return to civilian governance in three years.