CONAKRY – Guinea junta chief Capt Moussa Dadis Camara flew to Morocco yesterday for hospital treatment after being wounded in a gun attack by a former military aide, Moroccan authorities said.
Guinea’s leadership played down the extent of Capt Camara’s injuries and denied his departure left a power vacuum in the unstable West African nation, the world’s top exporter of the aluminium ore bauxite.
His powerful deputy Sekouba Konate returned to the capital Conakry from a trip abroad.
But Capt Camara’s evacuation for treatment in Morocco’s main military hospital raised questions about his future, with many observers believing he may not return to Guinea and could be persuaded to take exile.
“No bullet penetrated the president’s body. There was just a graze on the head,” communications minister Idrissa Cherif said of the attack in Conakry late on Thursday.
“Power is in the hands of the CNDD [junta] and the government,” he said of the regime which Capt Camara created after a bloodless coup in December 2008 that followed the death of strongman leader Lansana Conte.
However, a diplomat in Guinea said: “If he leaves the country, that would be it for him.”
Capt Camara was rushed to the Hay Riyad military hospital outside Rabat for treatment on what the Moroccan foreign ministry there said were “strictly humanitarian grounds”. – (Reuters)