Guinea opposition puts post-election death toll at 46

Guinea's opposition said Friday that 46 people were killed in a post-election "wave of terror", significantly increasing an earlier reported death toll in the West African nation.

President Alpha Conde, 82, won the hotly-contested October 18 vote, according to provisional official results, setting the stage for a controversial third term in office.

But leading opposition figure Cellou Dalein Diallo, 68, had already claimed victory, citing data his activists gathered at individual polling stations.

That move triggered clashes between Diallo's supporters and security forces across the former French colony.

The government said 21 people, including some gendarmes, were killed, while the opposition initially put the death toll at 27.

On Friday, Diallo's UFDG party said 46 civilians had died since the election, in what it termed a "wave of terror," in a document that named the dead and included photographs of their corpses.

"The provisional toll of this repression is 46 dead, nearly 200 wounded by bullets," the UFDG said in a statement.

Amnesty International has accused Guinean security forces of firing live rounds at protesters in post-election unrest.

Neither Guinea's security ministry nor its territorial administration ministry responded to questions from AFP.

The UFDG also said that the "overwhelming majority of the victims ... belong to the same ethnic group as the leader of the opposition".

Guinea's politics are mainly drawn along ethnic lines: the president's base is among the ethnic Malinke community while Diallo has strong backing among the Fulani people.

A former opposition leader, Conde became Guinea's first democratically-elected leader in 2010 and won re-election in 2015, but he has been accused of drifting into authoritarianism.

He pushed through a new constitution in March which he argued would modernise the country. But it also allowed him to bypass a two-term limit for presidents.

Diallo, a former prime minister, has unsuccessfully challenged Conde in each election the president has contested.

In the October 18 poll, Conde was credited with 59.49 percent of the vote and Diallo 33.5 percent, according to the country's election authority.

Diallo has appealed the outcome to Guinea's constitutional court, which must declare the final election results but has yet to do so.

A legal source told AFP that the constitutional court will make an announcement on Saturday.