MWANZA, Tanzania
As the military grab power in Guinea -- the third
African government to be toppled this year -- we look back on a decade of coups
across the continent.
Guinea
Elite troops led by Lieutenant-colonel Mamady Doumbouya take over
the impoverished West African state on Sunday, arresting 83-year-old President
Alpha Conde.
The veteran became Guinea's first democratically-elected president
in 2010 after spending years in jails at the hands of previous juntas.
But last year he sparked fury by changing the constitution so he
could run for a third term.
Mali
President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita is overthrown in August 2020
after several months of street protests in the troubled West African nation
which is threatened by an Islamic insurgency.
Then in May the military take over yet again after the civilian
leaders of an interim government remove soldiers from some key posts.
Army strongman Colonel Assimi Goita survives an assassination
attempt on July 20 at a Bamako Mosque.
Under international pressure, the colonel vows to hold free
elections by February.
Sudan
Dictator Omar al-Bashir's 30 years in power are terminated by the
army in April 2019 after a four-month street revolt sparked by the price of
bread tripling.
More than 250 people die in the protests. A transition council of
military and civil society leaders is formed in August 2019 and a civilian
prime minister appointed the following month.
Zimbabwe
Robert Mugabe, who had led the country with an iron fist for the
37 years since independence, falls in 2017.
He is ousted by the military and members of his own ZANU-PF party,
who replace him with former vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Mugabe dies in Singapore two years later aged 95.
Burkina Faso
Less than a year after the fall of president Blaise Compaore after
a popular revolt, Michel Kafando is overthrown as president in a coup led by
his own presidential guard in 2015.
Less than a week later Kafando is back in power after the coup
leaders fail to gather support, until elections are held in November.
Egypt
The military ousts Egypt's first democratically-elected leader,
the Islamist Mohamed Morsi, in 2013 after huge demonstrations against his one
year in charge.
The general who led the bloody putsch, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi,
becomes president and begins a brutal crackdown on dissent that is still going
on.
Guinea Bissau
Troops led by General Antonio Indjai oust interim president
Raimundo Pereira and former prime minister Carlos Gomes Junior between two
rounds of a presidential poll in 2012.
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