DAKAR, July 8, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Some two dozen rights groups called Tuesday for Guinea's ruling junta to release details on the fate of two activists missing for a year, following a recent spate of kidnappings in the west African country.

The two leading anti-junta activists, Oumar Sylla, better known as Fonike Mengue, and Mamadou Billo Bah, went missing in July 2024 from the capital Conakry.

Their pro-democracy movement, the National Front for the Defence of the Constitution (FNDC), said the pair were brutally arrested by armed men and have denounced their disappearance as a kidnapping.

"We call on the Guinean authorities to break their unbearable silence regarding the fate of the two FNDC activists," the 25 international and Guinean human rights groups said, in a statement released by Amnesty International.

In the days following their disappearance, Guinea's public prosecutor denied they had been arrested and called for investigations.

However no information has been made public, according to the rights groups.

"There is no indication that they have carried out investigations to find the two activists who have been missing for a year," the organisations said.

They also called on Guinean authorities to shed light on the case of journalist Habib Marouane Camara, missing since December.

Camara, who ran the news website Lerevelateur224, was arrested by uniformed men in a suburb of Conakry.

The rights groups said that apart from disappearances, multiple lawyers and political actors frequently report receiving threats against their safety.

Since taking power in a 2021 coup, Guinea's army junta has been accused of cracking down on the opposition while silencing dissenting voices.

The rights groups pointed to other similar disappearances such as that of leading junta critic Abdoul Sacko, who was hospitalised at the end of February after masked gunmen broke into his home through the ceiling and abducted him.

He was discovered "tortured" and in a "critical state" around 60 kilometres (35 miles) from the capital the next day, according to his lawyers.

Guinea is currently ruled by junta leader General Mamady Doumbouya.

The junta has routinely banned protests calling for the military to hand power back to civilians and has shut down several news outlets.