At least four people were killed on Monday as Guinean security forces clashed with citizens protesting against the possibility of president Alpha Conde seeking an unconstitutional third term.

Last month, 81-year-old Conde called on the public to prepare for a referendum and elections, stirring speculation that he is planning to overcome a constitutional bar on serving a third term. The next presidential ballot is due to be held late next year.

An alliance of unions, opposition parties and civil society groups called the National Front for the Defence of the Constitution (FNDC) has called for massive protests aginst the project

I ask Guineans to continue to protest and to block the way until the power understands that you cannot impose a dictatorship on us by force.

Deadly clashes

Authorities said a gendarme was killed during Monday’s clashes while relatives and a doctor confirmed the deaths of four protesters.

Pockets of violence erupted around the outer districts of Conakry, with some demonstrators setting up barricades, burning tires and throwing stones.

Hundreds of police and gendarmes responded with tear gas, stun grenades and real bullets, an AFP reporter saw.

The government confirmed only that a gendarme had been shot dead in the town of Mamou, east of the capital, adding that a resident in the city had been killed in unclear circumstances.

Tely Oury Bah, the father of one of the protesters, said his son Mamadou Lamarana Bah had been “coldly shot by a police officer”.

“I cannot even go to see the body at the hospital mortuary because there is no way through, the roads are blocked”, he said.

Earlier a local doctor said a 16-year-old boy had been killed and several others injured in the suburb of Sonfonia Gare. The center of the city, which hosts government offices and embassies, was under lock down and almost deserted.

Police on Monday surrounded the house of the opposition leader Cellou Dalein Diallo and Sidya Toure, who heads the opposition Union of Republican Forces (UFR).

“I ask Guineans to continue to protest and to block the way until the power understands that you cannot impose a dictatorship on us by force,” Toure told AFP by phone.