Curfew causes chaos in Guinea
2007-02-15 17:18
Conakry - Mariama Cire Toure tries to get her shopping done as quickly as possible these days.
The domestic chore has become a risky venture for residents of Guinea's dilapidated capital Conakry, who brave an 18-hour curfew, military roadblocks and stray bullets from street clashes to find scarce food for their families.
Riots, strikes, food shortages and now martial law have turned a tough daily existence into a life-and-death struggle in Conakry's "hautes banlieues" - the poor shanty neighbourhoods that are hotbeds of opposition to President Lansana Conte.
"In spite of the curfew, I get up early to go to the market, because I have to," says Toure, a 24-year-old university student who lives in Gbessia-Port, a neighbourhood of tin-roofed mud homes and dirt streets several kilometres from the city centre.
Conte, a chain-smoking diabetic recluse in his 70s whose foes say is unfit to govern, declared martial law on Monday.
Giving the military draconian search and arrest powers, he sent truckloads of armed soldiers into the streets to try to crush a general strike that had mushroomed into an open rebellion against his 23-year rule over the west African state.
More than 100 people, almost all civilians, have been killed in strike-related street riots this year, disrupting bauxite mining and exports that are the country's economic lifeblood.
Although public gatherings are forbidden, individuals defy the curfew, which is lifted between midday and 18:00, to forage for food under the wary eye of gun-toting soldiers and police.
"The military tolerate our presence, but we have to hurry up to get home. I'm really frightened of the shooting which one often hears. I rush to get back to my house," says Mariama.
Stray bullets
Although the military have cleared street barricades erected by rioters, rocks, burned tyres and other debris from the unrest are strewn on the dirt sidewalks. Trucks packed with soldiers and police, bristling with rifles, race past.
The military crackdown has restored a measure of calm. But the sound of rifle and machine gun fire has echoed across Conakry for most nights for the last few weeks, as security forces carry out orders to shoot rioters and looters.
Many of the casualties are innocent bystanders hit by stray bullets.
Mariama's sister Yari was grazed by a bullet on one of her arms during a shooting on Tuesday night.
"I was woken by a stray bullet coming through the roof. I was wounded on the arm ... but I don't have money to pay for medicines," she said, sitting under a mango tree.
Alassane Barry, who lived in another tin-roofed home just 100m away, was not so lucky.
He was found dead in his bed, killed by another stray bullet. Soldiers took away his body, said his family.
The strike has shut down banks, offices, most shops and businesses and major markets, but some vendors offer food items and other essentials - not enough though to satisfy the demand.