Death Toll Rises to 92 Amid Anti-Government Protests in Guinea

The National Front for the Defence of the Constitution (NFDC), an opposition group in Guinea, has reported that at least 90 protestors have been killed in a fierce crackdown on protests by President Alpha Condé and his government. A number of the protesters have been reportedly shot dead by security forces. The ongoing anti-government demonstrations, which began last year, are in direct response to President Condé seeking a third term in office after having amended the country's constitution to permit him to do so.

READ: Deep Dive: Protest Movements Across the Continent

Last week, the death toll sat at 50 and seems to be rising steadily just a week before national elections are set to take place on October 18th. However, Guinea's Minister of Security, Albert Damantang Camara, has dismissed the recent death toll reported by the NFDC saying that there is "not enough evidence to attribute them to security forces". According to AFP, Camara also added that, "There have been violent deaths, which we regret, and we are working to ensure that this does not happen again but it would be very surprising if there were 92 of them."

Unsurprisingly, Aljazeera reports that critics of the Guinean government have described President Condé as having "veered towards authoritarianism in his current second term." While Condé was himself an opposition figure before he was democratically elected to the presidency back in 2010, he has admittedly lost favour with Guineans over the years particularly after he announced that he would be running for his controversial third term in office.

The protests in Guinea are currently taking place with several other protests across the continent from the protests against police brutality in Nigeria to demonstrations against gender-based violence in Namibia.