Appearing on state television, military officers read from a statement, calmly announcing the takeover of the state. In the streets of the capital, crowds celebrate, cheering as the coup is roundly condemned outside their country.
It is a scene that has played out on multiple occasions in recent memory in west Africa – in Mali in 2020 and again in August last year, in Guinea in September, and in Burkina Faso just last week. Coups have also taken place to the east, in Chad and Sudan. As recently as Tuesday, an attempted coup was thwarted in Guinea Bissau.
