Guinea authorities say Doumbouya is healthy despite absence

Guinean President Mamady Doumbouya, who has been absent from the country for more than two weeks, is in "good health", authorities told local media Monday, as speculation swirled surrounding his medical fitness.

Doumbouya, 41, who has ruled the west African country with an iron fist since 2021 as junta leader then president, left Guinea on February 13 to attend an African Union summit in Addis Ababa but never returned.

After coming to power in a coup, Doumbouya was elected as president for a seven-year term in December in a vote in which all major opposition leaders were barred.

For months, he has remained mostly out of the public eye, appearing only once on the campaign trail at a closing rally in which he did not speak, and again to cast his ballot.

In January, he was sworn in before tens of thousands of supporters at a stadium and was seen again in February when he spoke at the AU summit.

His advisor Thierno Mamadou Bah said Doumbouya "is in good health" while promising that he will return to Conakry "in the next few days", according to multiple local media outlets Monday.

Bah said the president had taken "a few days of rest" on the sidelines of the AU summit, without specifying his whereabouts.

"He took advantage of the chance to undergo a routine medical check-up, as prudent leaders do when they are concerned with maintaining their full capacity to act," Bah said.

"I can state, with the utmost clarity, that the results are reassuring, everything is going very well," he added.

Doumbouya toppled Guinea's first freely elected president Alpha Conde in 2021 and has since cracked down on civil liberties and banned protests.

Political opponents have been arrested, put on trial or driven into exile during his time as leader.

Since its 1958 independence, Guinea has had a complex history of military and authoritarian rule.