Guinea Detains 16 Sierra Leone Soldiers For Crossing Border Without Authorization

Guinea’s military has confirmed it detained 16 Sierra Leonean soldiers after accusing them of entering Guinean territory without authorisation and planting their national flag.

The Guinean Ministry of National Defence said in a statement issued late Tuesday that the soldiers crossed into the Koudaya district in Faranah, a border region, where they “set up a tent and raised their national flag.”

Guinean authorities seized the soldiers’ equipment and supplies during the detention.

Sierra Leonean authorities said earlier Tuesday that Guinean forces had apprehended several members of a security unit, including an officer, while they were making bricks for a border post in Kalieyereh in the Falaba district on Monday.

Naija News gathered that the two West African nations have been entangled in a border dispute stretching back more than two decades to the Sierra Leonean Civil War, which lasted from 1991 to 2002.

During that conflict, Sierra Leone invited Guinean troops to help defend its eastern borders against rebel forces. The problem arose when Guinean soldiers never fully withdrew after the war ended, creating a territorial disagreement that persists today.

Tensions flared again last year when Guinean military forces entered a mineral-rich border town that Sierra Leone claims as its territory.

The detention of the 16 soldiers represents the latest confrontation in the long-running dispute over the exact location of the border between the two countries.

Both governments have yet to announce any diplomatic measures to resolve the current standoff or address the broader territorial disagreement that has troubled relations for over 20 years.