More than two years after the disappearance of prominent Guinea activist Oumar Sylla, better known as Foniké Menguè, and his colleague Mamadou Billo Bah, their wives are refusing to let the case go cold.
The two women have taken fresh legal action in Paris, lodging a formal criminal complaint with civil party status to force French authorities to investigate their husbands’ fate.
Sylla and Bah, leading figures in the National Front for the Defence of the Constitution (FNDC), were seized by security forces at Sylla’s home in Conakry and have not been seen since.
By filing with civil party status, the families bypass prosecutors and automatically trigger the appointment of an independent French investigating magistrate. It is a critical move after an initial complaint filed in France in 2024 was quietly shelved without action by state prosecutors.
FNDC mobiliser Sékou Koundouno said the families turned to courts abroad after exhausting options at home, where local inquiries into the arrests have stalled.
With impunity remaining a bitter issue across the region, the families hope French legal intervention will finally yield answers about where the two men were taken, and who ordered their removal.
–ChannelAfrica–
