This is the wrong time to be a Nigerian in Guinea-Bissau. Yesterday, the country’s embassy in the capital, Bissau, was sacked by an armed gang even as three Nigerians accused of kidnapping a child were lynched by an angry mob of young rioters elsewhere in the city.

A report by AFP said that the trio was killed after the disappearance of a young boy on yesterday morning after a rumour quickly spread across the city that the child had been taken by a group of Nigerians, prompting an angry crowd to gather which security forces were unable to control.

An AFP journalist saw two of the Nigerian bodies in the morgue.

Hundreds of angry rioters, mostly young and armed with stones and bottles, managed to grab one of the suspected kidnappers from a police car as officers stood by powerless, according to the AFP journalist.

“Death to Nigerians! Enough is enough, stop! The Nigerians must leave,” chanted the crowd.

Police fired warning shots and tear gas in an effort to disperse the mob, but they were unsuccessful.

The police called for reinforcements and soldiers from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) currently in the country were deployed in the town and managed to restore some sense of calm in the afternoon.

Meanwhile, a report this morning in the Lagos-based Guardian newspaper has it that armed groups attacked Nigeria’s embassy in the country of about 1.7 million people. The reason for the action is not yet known.

Quoting unnamed sources, The Guardian said that armed personnel and militias stormed the embassy in a commando style, attacking everyone in sight and eventually causing the closure of the Nigerian sovereign outpost.

“As at press time, members of staff of the embassy, including the Nigerian envoy to that country, Ambassador Ahmed Adams, were said to be taking refuge in a police station. No casualty has so far been reported,” the paper said.

It said that efforts to reach the Nigerian envoy to the country failed. Although his telephone rang, he did not pick.

“Although the Federal Government was yet to officially react to the development yesterday, it was learnt that the supervisory Minister of Foreign Affairs 11, Ambassador Nurudeen Mohammed, rushed to the Presidential Villa yesterday ostensibly, among other things, to brief President Goodluck Jonathan. All efforts to reach the minister yesterday on the matter failed,” the paper reported.

•Photo courtesy AFP shows one of the alleged kidnappers in the grip of Guinea-Bissau police.

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