Guinea reopens its border with Senegal

The border between Guinea and Senegal, which has been closed since last year, following a decision by former Head of State Alpha Conde, was reopened.

The closure decision on internal security concerns had affected economic activities between the two countries.

This lock between the two countries has resulted mainly in the organization of clandestine trafficking with the complicity of border agents, accompanied by a significant increase in the price of goods, suffocating the economy of the region and the rest of the country.

Goods were rotting by the ton in trucks blocked between the prefectures of Koundara and Mali, both located near the Guinean-Senegalese border.

“We can finally breathe,” says Thierno Amadou Daka, president of the regional Chamber of commerce in Labe, the central city of the Middle Guinea region.

A coup d’Etat, staged by an elite Special Forces unit earlier this month, removed the 83-year-old president Alpha Conde. The coup leader Colonel Mamady Doumbouya took the reins of power.

The Junta unveiled Monday the key points of the transition Charter, which will apply until a new Guinean Constitution is adopted. The document sets out the legal framework for the transition period, without determining the duration of the transition, specifies the missions and duties of the various bodies, and imposes a minimum of 30 percent of women in each group appointed to the CNT.

The charter stipulates that all persons participating in the transition will be banned from running in the next national and local elections, including the leader of the coup and current head of state, Lieutenant Colonel Mamady Doumbouya. “This provision is not subject to revision,” the text says.
Members of the government and heads of institutions under the regime of ousted President Alpha Conde are excluded from the transition.