A week after the wave of arrests conducted in Djibouti in fear of a coup, an apparent calm seems to have returned to the country’s capital.
No news has been leaked to the local press about the fate of the political and military leaders arrested last week, some of whom were placed under house arrest and others transferred to prisons in the capital following the provisions of the investigative authorities.
No comment has been leaked by the office of the President, as well as by the official organs of the government, and no particular security measures have been reported in the country.
According to some members of the opposition forces to the government of Ismail Omar Guelleh, based in France, last week’s arrests would have strongly shocked the president and his family entourage, demonstrating the concrete and ramified presence of a vast opposition sentiment within the Issa clan.
This faction, in particular, would have clearly manifested its hostility towards the ambitions of his wife Kadra to succeed him, considered interested in favouring the rise of her son Naguib Abdallah Kamil, from a previous marriage.
In spite of the apparent calm recorded in Djibouti, therefore, according to the opposition forces, a vast reconnaissance by President Guelleh is underway in order to understand the extension of the opposition movement accused of having planned a coup d’état, above all ascertaining the involvement of members of the armed forces and those of the police. The ramification, however, would be entirely internal to the Issa clan.