Guinea releases 16 Sierra Leonean soldiers arrested earlier this week

In a move aimed at de-escalating tensions, Sierra Leone said Guinea on Friday had released 16 of its soldiers and police officers arrested on Tuesday.

“All security officers arrested by the Guinean authorities have been safely handed over to Sierra Leone," the information ministry said on social media.

Freetown said the men had been constructing a border post and another facility at the frontier town of Kaliyereh when members of Guinea's armed forces arrived and captured them.

Guinea, for its part, said that several dozen armed Sierra Leonean soldiers had entered its territory without authorisation, prompting its security forces to apprehend them.

Conakry’s Prime Minister Amadou Oury Bah on Thursday promised that the dispute would be settled quickly through diplomacy.

The two countries share a 700 kilometre border and territorial disputes date back to Sierra Leone’s more decade-long civil war which ended in 2002. 

Guinea at the time deployed troops to help fight rebels.

This latest incident took place in an area that has been contested for more than 20 years, with Sierra Leone claiming it belongs to them but where Guinea still has soldiers stationed on the ground.

Both countries belong to a number of regional groupings such as the west African bloc ECOWAS and, with Liberia and Ivory Coast, the Mano River Union.