West African regional bloc ECOWAS on Sunday threatened “targeted sanctions” on anyone obstructing Guinea-Bissau’s return to civilian rule following last month’s coup.
The announcement came as presidents from across the region met in Nigeria for a bi-annual meeting whose agenda was dominated by two recent coup attempts: a successful military takeover in Guinea-Bissau and a failed putsch in Benin.
“The authorities shall impose targeted sanctions on individuals or groups of persons that obstruct the transition process,” ECOWAS commission president Omar Alieu Touray told reporters at the end of the summit, held in the Nigerian capital Abuja.
Touray also said that the ECOWAS peacekeeping force deployed in Guinea-Bissau, a small, coup-prone West African country, since 2022, was “authorised… to provide protection to all political leaders and national institutions”.
The twin disruptions of civilian rule — last month in Guinea-Bissau and a week ago in Benin — have rattled the Economic Community of West African States, which condemned both at Sunday’s summit.
The failed putsch in Benin saw Nigeria deploy fighter jets and troops, alongside soldiers from the Ivory Coast, to shore up the civilian government. ECOWAS has said more soldiers are on their way from Ghana and Sierra Leone.
ECOWAS was previously hit with a string of coups between 2020 and 2023 in Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, and Niger — all of whom are still under junta control.