On Wednesday, official radio reported that at least six people were murdered in a failed attempt to oust Guinea-Bissau President Umaro Sissoco Embalo, as inhabitants of the city warily returned to everyday life.

It claimed four assailants and two members of the presidential guard were killed in the attack on Tuesday. After gunfire rang out for more than five hours outside a government facility where Embalo was conducting a cabinet meeting on Tuesday night, Embalo declared the situation under control. find out more

Since its independence from Portugal in 1974, the West African country, which has a population of around 2 million people, has had ten coups or attempted coups. Only one democratically elected president has served the entirety of his or her tenure.

Over the previous 18 months, West Africa has seen a slew of military coups, including two in Mali, one in Guinea, and one just last week in Burkina Faso, prompting commentators to warn of "coup contagion."

In Guinea-Bissau, the situation looked to be different. The perpetrators of the incident are still unknown, however, Embalo speculated that it was related to the government's campaign against drug trafficking rather than an army plot to seize control.

"It wasn't just a coup. It was an attempt to kill the president, the prime minister, and all the cabinet," he said on Tuesday night.

The attack "was well prepared and organized and could also be related to people involved in drug trafficking", he said, without giving details.

Guinea-Bissau, a poor nation on the coast split between Guinea to the south and Senegal to the north, is a significant transit site for Latin American cocaine bound for Europe, adding to the country's persistent instability.

It is plagued by political gridlock and infighting, but it does not face the same security threats as Mali and Burkina Faso, where a spiraling Islamist insurgency has murdered thousands of people and damaged trust in civilian administrations in recent years.

The major route connecting Bissau's city center to the airport remained blocked on Wednesday morning due to the presidential palace's proximity, but banks and stores had reopened and people were venturing out, according to a Reuters correspondent.

"My country's reputation has once again been damaged across the world," Edson Gomes, a mechanic, said.

In a tweet, President of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission Jean-Claude Kassi Brou claimed that the army was behind the coup attempt.

"I applaud the collapse of Guinea-military Bissau's coup attempt, which was an attack on democracy and the people," he stated.

Terence Wills, the French ambassador to Guinea-Bissau, visited Embalo on Wednesday and praised him for his "sang-froid" during the incident.