Embalo appeared in a video posted on the presidency’s Facebook page, hours after hearing gunfire near a compound where he was chairing a cabinet meeting.
He said that some of those involved had been arrested, but he did not know how many.
Social media posts from accounts linked to the president of Guinea-Bissau stated that the situation in the West African country had come under the control of the government, and that calm had returned to the capital, Bissau.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union condemned what they described as an “attempted coup” in Guinea-Bissau, where heavy gunfire was heard near a government compound where the country’s president was chairing a cabinet meeting.
A post on Embalo’s official Facebook account said: “Calm back to Bissau!” and included pictures, without knowing when they were taken, of Embalo sitting in an armchair while talking to army officers in uniform.
As stated in a tweet on Twitter from an account in the name of Embalo, but it has not yet been possible to verify that it is his original account, he is fine.
“The situation is under the control of the government. I thank the people of Guinea-Bissau and all those outside our country’s borders who are concerned about my government and myself,” it said.
This account did not carry the blue tick that Twitter verified as the original account, but it did show a large number of previous posts, apparently from Empalo, that talked about routine government business.
Portuguese Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva said earlier that he had received “positive” information that Embalo was at his residence, although he did not know whether the attack on the government of Guinea-Bissau had ended or not.
Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said on his official website that he spoke to Embalo by phone and “conveyed his strong condemnation… of these attacks on the constitutional order of Guinea Bissau.”
Prior to these developments, the African Union stated that some members of the government were being held and called on the army to release them, without elaborating.
The country has been plagued by political instability for decades. Nine coups and attempted coups since independence from Portugal in 1974 have undermined efforts to diversify the economy away from the export of cashews.
A spokesman said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “deeply concerned” by the reports from Guinea-Bissau.
A diplomatic source said Sissoko Embalo began presiding over an extraordinary meeting of the cabinet at around 10 am, and entered the building amid heavy security.
The Cabinet meeting was held to prepare for the upcoming ECOWAS Summit that will be held in response to the military coup that took place last week in Burkina Faso.