CONAKRY, Jan 22: Police shot dead 17 protesters across Guinea on Monday, raising to 27 the death toll in almost two weeks of a general strike and demonstrations against President Lansana Conte’s rule, medical and union officials said.

Thirteen people were killed and at least 30 injured by gunfire in different suburbs of the capital Conakry, a medical official said at the Donka Hospital, one of the two biggest in the city.

Two demonstrators were killed and 11 wounded by security forces in the eastern town of Kankan, and two others were killed while eight were injured at nearby Siguiri, the regional secretary-general of the National Confederation of Workers of Guinea, Mamadi Conde, told AFP.

Thousands of people had been marching towards the centre of Conakry, whose governor banned all public rallies on Jan 14, after violence erupted in the strike called by the west African country’s labour confederations.—AFP