The self-proclaimed President of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Sissoco Embaló, extended this Sunday for another 15 days the state of emergency in the country, in the context of combating the covid-19 pandemic.
“The declaration of a state of emergency is renewed throughout the national territory based on the verification of a continued situation of public calamity”, says the presidential decree released to the press.
In the decree, General Umaro Sissoco Embaló explains that he decided to prolong the state of emergency in the country until April 26, because the “situation has worsened”.
“We are obliged to consider and requalify the measures adopted, extend most of them and adapt others to the current circumstances”, says the decree, stressing that the Government must adopt concrete measures for the application of the state of emergency and to respect the limits imposed by the Constitution.
General Umaro Sissoco Embaló had declared a state of emergency in Guinea-Bissau on March 27, a deadline that ended today.
Total of 39 cases
Guinea-Bissau health officials said today that the number of cases registered with the new coronavirus has increased to 39, while the number of three recovered from the disease remains.
As part of the fight against the new coronavirus, the Guinean authorities declared a state of emergency, as well as the closure of the air, land and sea borders in Guinea-Bissau, measures that were accompanied by a series of other restrictions similar to what is happening. in several countries around the world.
One of the restrictions only allows people to travel between 07:00 and 11:00 local time (less than one hour than in Lisbon).
More than one hundred thousand dead
The new coronavirus, responsible for the covid-19 pandemic, has already caused more than 103,000 deaths and infected more than 1.7 million people in 193 countries and territories.
Of the cases of infection, more than 341 thousand are considered cured.
After appearing in China in December, the outbreak spread worldwide, prompting the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a pandemic situation.
The European continent, with more than 870 thousand infected and more than 71 thousand dead, is the one that registers the largest number of cases, and Italy is the country in the world with more fatalities, accounting for 19,468 deaths, among 152,271 confirmed cases until today .
On the African continent, 693 people died from covid-19 and 12,973 cases are reported in 52 countries.
Political crisis
Covid-19 reached Guinea-Bissau at a time when the country is going through yet another period of political crisis, after General Umaro Sissoco Embaló, named as the winner of the elections by the National Elections Commission, declared himself President of the country, while an electoral litigation appeal filed by Domingos Simões Pereira is taking place in the Supreme Court of Justice.
Umaro Sissoco Embaló took office at a ceremony led by the vice-president of the country’s parliament Nuno Nabian, who ended up leaving those functions, to assume the leadership of the Government appointed by the self-proclaimed President.
The government dismissed by Umaro Sissoco Embaló, that of Prime Minister Aristides Gomes, maintains the support of the majority in the parliament of Guinea-Bissau.
The government led by Nuno Nabian occupied the ministries with the support of the military, but Sissoco Embaló refuses that a coup d’état is underway in the country and says that it awaits the Supreme Court’s decision on the electoral dispute.
After the ministries were occupied, the security forces were at the home of Aristides Gomes’ ministers to retrieve state vehicles.
Following the inauguration of Umaro Sissoco Emabaló and his government, Guinea-Bissau’s main international partners called for a resolution of the crisis based on the country’s law and constitution, underlining the importance of a decision by the Supreme Court being known. of Justice on the appeal of electoral litigation.
The Supreme Court of Justice has forwarded a position on electoral litigation when the circumstances that determined the state of emergency in the country are overcome.
