UPDATE - Gabon: Soldiers seize state radio in coup attempt

ADDS DETAILS

By Alaattin Dogru

DAKAR, Senegal (AA) - A group of soldiers seized the state radio in a coup attempt in Gabon early Monday, according to local media reports.

Soldiers led by Lt. Kelly Ondo Obiang captured the national radio in the Central African country in the wee hours of the day.

The soldiers read a statement on the radio, announcing a "National Restoration Council".

Obiang, the leader of plotters and the self-declared "Patriotic Movement of the Defense and Security Forces" said the president -- who has been out of the country for over two months -- cannot fulfill his responsibilities.

Sources close to the government said that gunshots were heard around the national television station, adding that the coup soldiers were a small group.

Eyewitnesses gunshots were also heard around the Presidential Palace, while the situation in the capital remained calm.

Earlier in November, the Gabonese government announced that the Central African leader had suffered "fatigue" and "persistent vertigo" since arriving in Saudi Arabia in late October, where he went to attend an investment event.

He has left Saudi Arabia, where he had stayed for a month and received medical treatment for an apparent health disorder, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Nov. 29.

Bongo went to Morocco at the invitation of King Mohammed VI for further medical treatment.

Gabon’s president has been discharged from a hospital in Morocco on Dec. 6, where he had been receiving treatment since he left Saudi Arabia, according to the local media reports.

He addressed his New Year message from the capital Rabat, where he is recovering after the treatment, saying he will return to his country soon.

Bongo, 59, came to power in Gabon in elections held following the death of his father, Omar Bongo, in 2009, who had ruled the central African country for 41 years.

Gabon has been rocked by sporadic violence since the 2009 poll, the results of which have been questioned by the country’s political opposition.

For the past 50 years, the Bongo family has dominated Gabon, where a third of the population lives below the poverty line despite the country’s vast mineral wealth.