The arrests come ahead of general elections in November, as incumbent President Umaro Sissoko Embalo is at odds with the opposition.
Published October 31, 2025
According to the Guinea-Bissau military, a group of Guinea-Bissau military officers have been arrested on suspicion of attempting a coup.
The coup plot involved several senior officials and was reported missing since Monday, a day before the general election campaign began.
Recommended stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
The military’s deputy chief of staff, Mamadou Toure Krumah, said at a press conference on Friday that the military had thwarted “an attempt to subvert the constitutional order.”
“This sad incident involving some generals and senior officers of our armed forces jeopardizes the peace and stability desired for socio-economic development and attracting foreign investment,” the military chief of staff said in a statement.
The attempted coup was allegedly led by Brigadier General Dahaba Navalna, head of a military training school, with support from some generals and senior officers.
Mr. Cha did not name all of the detained officers, but named Mr. Navalna as well as commanders Domingos Nanke and Mario Midana as among the senior officers arrested at their home in the capital Bissau on Thursday.
There is no word on what will happen to the alleged coup masterminds or how many people are suspected of taking part in the coup. This is the second known coup attempt against President Umaro Sissoko Embalo, who came to power in 2020, with the most recent one occurring in December 2023.
“No disorder will be tolerated.”
Ahead of the November general election, there was a major controversy over Embalo’s term in office.
“This is just another attempt to subvert the constitutional order on the eve of the start of the campaign for parliamentary and presidential elections on November 23,” Cha said.
Guinea-Bissau begins campaigning on Saturday in elections that are likely to favor the incumbent after the main opposition party was disqualified.
“Any disorder will not be tolerated,” Embalo told reporters after Thursday’s Cabinet meeting, adding that “the government has taken all necessary measures to ensure the safety of each candidate during the election period.”
Embalo is at odds with the opposition, which insists that his current five-year term expires at the end of February, and the Supreme Court has decided that his term will expire on September 4.
Embalo also said in March that he intended to run for a second term in November, reversing his earlier vow to step down.
The opposition refuses to recognize Embalo as president. A West African regional bloc mission sent to Guinea-Bissau in March to help resolve the crisis also abruptly left after receiving threats of expulsion from Embalo.
Guinea-Bissau has suffered a number of coups since gaining independence from Portugal in 1974, but since the 2014 presidential election, the Portuguese-speaking country has begun to move towards the rule of law.
