Failed coup puts spotlight back on Guinea-Bissau's role in cocaine trade

Guinea-Bissau soldiers are pictured in the streets of the capital city of Bissau, Guinea-Bissau February 7, 2022. REUTERS/Aaron Ross

BISSAU (Reuters) - In October, President Umaro Sissoco Embalo told French radio that drug trafficking and corruption were over in Guinea-Bissau, a country that has struggled to shake off its reputation as a "narco state" of West Africa.

Those words rang hollow a few months later. Fierce gunfire interrupted a cabinet meeting Embalo was presiding over, and within hours of the deadly Feb. 1 attack he described it as a failed coup attempt possibly linked to the drugs trade.