The President of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Embalo, issued a decree on Monday dissolving the parliament after an attempted coup in the West African nation.

Violence had erupted between members of the national guardand special forces of the presidential guard on Thursday night in the capital, Bissau, leaving two people dead before the army ordered its forces back to barracks.

Embalo, who was in Dubai attending the COP28 climate conference, arrived back in Bissau on Saturday and announced that an “attempted coup d’etat” had prevented him from returning earlier.

On Monday, he said there had been “complicity” between the national guard and “certain political interests within the state apparatus.”

That meant “the normal functioning of the institutions of the Republic has become impossible,” he added.

Since gaining independence from Portugal in 1974, the country has seen a series of coups and coup attempts.

Elected to a five-year term in December 2019, Embalo survived a bid to overthrow him in February 2022.