Dodging curfew, stray bullets, Guineans survive

CONAKRY, Feb 16 (Reuters) Mariama Cire Toure tries to get her shopping done as quickly as possible these days.

The domestic chore has become a risky venture for residents of Guinea's dilapidated capital Conakry, who brave an 18-hour curfew, military roadblocks and stray bullets from street clashes to find scarce food for their families.

Riots, strikes, food shortages and now martial law have turned a tough daily existence into a life-and-death struggle in Conakry's ''hautes banlieues'' -- the poor shanty neighbourhoods that are hotbeds of opposition to President Lansana Conte.

''In spite of the curfew, I get up early to go to the market, because I have to,'' says Toure, a 24-year-old university student who lives in Gbessia-Port, a neighbourhood of tin-roofed mud homes and dirt streets several kilometres from the city centre.

Conte, a chain-smoking diabetic recluse in his 70s whose foes say is unfit to govern, declared martial law on Monday.

Giving the military draconian search and arrest powers, he sent truckloads of armed soldiers into the streets to try to crush a general strike that had mushroomed into an open rebellion against his 23-year rule over the West African state.

Well over 100 people, almost all civilians, have been killed in strike-related street riots this year, disrupting bauxite mining and exports that are the country's economic lifeblood.

Although public gatherings are forbidden, individuals defy the curfew, which is lifted between midday and 6 p.m., to forage for food under the wary eye of gun-toting soldiers and police.

''The military tolerate our presence but we have to hurry up to get home. I'm really frightened of the shooting which one often hears. I rush to get back to my house,'' says Mariama.

Although the military have cleared street barricades erected by rioters, rocks, burned tyres and other debris from the unrest are strewn on the dirt sidewalks. Trucks packed with soldiers and police, bristling with rifles, race past.

The military crackdown has restored a measure of calm. But the sound of rifle and machine gun fire has echoed across Conakry for most nights for the last few weeks, as security forces carry out orders to shoot rioters and looters.

STRAY BULLETS Many of the casualties are innocent bystanders hit by stray bullets.

Mariama's sister Yari was grazed by a bullet on one of her arms during a shooting on Tuesday night.

''I was woken by a stray bullet coming through the roof. I was wounded on the arm ... but I don't have money to pay for medicines,'' she said, sitting under a mango tree.

Alassane Barry, who lived in another tin-roofed home just 100 metres (yards) away, was not so lucky.

He was found dead in his bed, killed by another loose bullet.

Soldiers took away his body, his family said.

The strike has shut down banks, offices, most shops and businesses and major markets, but some vendors offer food items and other essentials -- not enough though to satisfy the demand.

''There's not enough food in the market, even rice is scarce,'' said Mariama. As a result of the shortages, the price of rice, the staple fare, had increased by more than 30 per cent to 4,500 Guinean francs a kilogramme and was rising.

Meat or fish are luxuries for most people.

Government authorities have called for a restart of talks with union bosses to try to negotiate a way out of the crisis.

But the strike leaders, who want Conte to annul his appointment last week of a close ally as prime minister and name another one, say they cannot negotiate under martial law.

The impasse prolongs the suffering for ordinary Guineans.

''We're hungry. I really wish the powers that be would lift martial law. We can't get by like this, we have no money,'' said Macire Camara, a street trader in her 40s from Dixinn neighbourhood, one of the quarters worst hit by violence.

REUTERS PB VC0900