2022 — Guinea-Bissau's Failed Coup Attempt

On February 1, 2022, gunmen stormed the government palace in Bissau during a cabinet meeting. A five-hour gun battle followed, and eleven people were killed. President Umaro Sissoco Embaló survived, calling it a failed attack against democracy and blaming drug traffickers for the assault.

Guinea-Bissau had long been known as a cocaine corridor between South America and Europe, a trade that shadowed its politics. This was the country's ninth coup or coup attempt since independence in 1974. That record is why one afternoon of gunfire mattered so much: it tested whether elected government could hold in a state where seizing power by force had become a recurring habit.