CONAKRY — Twenty African civil society organisations issued a joint statement Sunday demanding an independent investigation into the discovery of six male bodies found bound and blindfolded in a mass grave in Guinea's southwestern Forecariah prefecture.
Residents searching for firewood in the village of Allassoyah found the bodies last Monday, according to local sources who spoke to Agence France-Presse. All six were male. None had been publicly identified as of Sunday.
Guinea's armed forces acknowledged the discovery for the first time Sunday—a full week after the bodies were found. In a statement, the military said the six bodies had been transported to a hospital in Forecariah for identification and determination of their deaths. The statement said investigation results would be made public.
The joint statement demanded that all possible explanations be examined and that the inquiry be conducted with the support of both national and international forensic experts to formally identify the victims. Several groups involved are branches of Tournons La Page—translated as Turn the Page—a citizens' movement network operating across more than a dozen African countries.
The coalition said the discovery follows at least 35 cases of enforced disappearances documented by TLP-Guinea since Sept. 5, 2021. The groups said the manner in which the bodies were found—bound, blindfolded, in a concealed grave—raises fears the victims were subjected to extrajudicial execution.
General Mamady Doumbouya seized power in Guinea in a September 2021 military coup. In the years since, the junta has suspended political parties, suppressed public protests and arrested, sentenced or forced into exile opposition figures and civil society leaders. Abductions and disappearances of activists have grown more common, according to human rights monitors.
The seven-day gap between the discovery and the first official military statement drew sharp attention from the NGO coalition, which said the delayed acknowledgment itself warranted scrutiny. The groups called for the investigation to be conducted free from interference and to encompass all possible explanations, including state involvement.
Forecariah prefecture, where Allassoyah is located, sits in Lower Guinea near the border with Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau. The area has seen periodic unrest and security incidents since the coup, though no prior mass grave discovery of this scale has been publicly documented in recent years.
The Guinean military did not address the NGOs' statement directly or specify a timeline for releasing results. No independent authority has been granted access to the site or the remains, according to the civil groups.
