Authorities in Sierra Leone say the Sunday’s disturbance in which armed men attacked military barracks and prison facility in the capital city Freetown was an attempted coup.
The gunmen had tried to “subvert and overthrow” the government on Sunday, the information minister said on Tuesday.
The Sunday’s attack on military barracks and prisons saw the assailants free over 2,000 inmates, the authorities said.
At least 19 people, comprising security forces and a civilian, died in the violence.
“The incident was a failed attempted coup. The intention was to illegally subvert and overthrow a democratically elected government,” Information Minister Chernoh Bah said.
“The attempt failed, and plenty of the leaders are either in police custody or on the run. We will try to capture them and bring them to the full force of the laws of Sierra Leone.”
Thirteen military officers and one civilian have been arrested over the disorder, the minister said.
Calm has been restored in Freetown but shots fired on Tuesday in the Murray Town neighbourhood, raising apprehension.
This was however a part of an operation to apprehend perpetrators of Sunday’s attack, the police said.
No-one was hurt in this incident and a person of interest has been detained, officers said.
The entire country has been under a number of curfews since Sunday morning, when men carrying heavy weaponry took to the streets of Freetown.
Some of the soldiers chanted that they planned to “clean Sierra Leone”, BBC had witnessed.
The men stormed a military barracks located close to the presidential residence then attempted, unsuccessfully, to take weapons from the armoury.
They also broke into a “major” prisons in the capital, the information minister said.
Videos shared on social media showed several people fleeing from the area of Freetown’s Central Pademba Road prison on Sunday.
Twenty-three prisoners have been brought back, a report shared by prison officials with news agency Reuters shows.
Several countries in West and Central Africa are under military rule after a series of recent coups.
These include Sierra Leone’s neighbour Guinea as well as Mali, Niger and Chad.
The political situation in Sierra Leone has been tense since June when President Julius Maada Bio was re-elected – narrowly missing out on the need to have a run-off.
