West Africa's regional bloc, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) deployed troops to Guinea-Bissau on Monday to help stabilize the country after a failed coup earlier this year.
The 15-nation bloc announced in February that it would deploy the force, a few days after President Umaru Sissoco Embalo survived what he called an assassination attempt by drug traffickers.
"We thank ECOWAS heads of state for their... solidarity at a time when Bissau was grappling with upheavals linked to several attempts to subvert constitutional and democratic order," Defence Minister Marciano Silva Barbeiro said at an inauguration ceremony in the capital Bissau.
