CONAKRY, Guinea — Guinea on Friday released 16 soldiers and police officers from neighboring Sierra Leone who were arrested earlier this week in a border dispute, Sierra Leonean authorities said.
āAll security officers arrested by the Guinean authorities have been safely handed over to Sierra Leone,ā Sierra Leoneās Ministry of Information said in a Facebook post.
The release followed a visit to Guineaās capital, Conakry, by a delegation led by Foreign Minister Alhaji Timothy Kabba, the ministry said.
Several members of a security team, including an officer, were apprehended and transported across the border by members of Guineaās military, Sierra Leoneās government said Tuesday.
The Guinean military said in a statement the same day that the security team had entered Guinean territory without authorization and āset up a tent and raised their national flagā about a mile (1.6 kilometers) inside Guineaās border.
For more than two decades, the West African countries have been involved in a border dispute stemming from Sierra Leoneās civil war between 1991 and 2002. Sierra Leoneās government invited Guinea to help defend its eastern borders during the war, but Guinean troops did not fully withdraw afterward.
The latest incident occurred Monday in the border town of Kalieyereh in Falaba District, according to Sierra Leoneās government, which said members of its armed forces and police were working on āmaking bricks for the construction of a border post and accommodation facilityā at the site.
Last year, the Guinean military entered a mineral-rich border town in Sierra Leone, sparking regional concerns.
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