Twenty people were killed and nearly 2,000 prisoners escaped Sunday in attacks on a camp, prison and other buildings in Sierra Leone, authorities said today.

Panic gripped the West African country in the early hours of Sunday morning when gunfire rang out across the capital Freetown. The government blames the attack on “deserted soldiers” whom it pushed back.

THE president Julius Maanda Bio in his speech he said that most of the perpetrators were arrested and efforts are underway to locate the rest.

A military spokesman, Colonel Isa Bangura, told Reuters the dead were 20, including 13 soldiers, three of the attackers, a policeman, a civilian and someone who worked for a private security company. Eight people were injured and three have been arrested.

About 1,890 prisoners escaped from Pandemba Road Jail after the armed men invaded the building complex. So far only 23 have returned to their cells.

Colonel Shek Suleiman Masakui, Acting Director General of the Sierra Leone Correctional Service, said that the attack lasted two hours. The attackers stormed the main gate with a vehicle, having previously failed to breach the prison’s defenses with gunfire and a rocket.

A Reuters reporter who entered the prison today found cell doors wide open or completely removed and piles of trash as the building continued to be cleaned.

The police urged the escapees to return to the prison while he announced that he would offers a reward for information leading to the arrest of the prisoners or the perpetrators of the attack.

This afternoon in Freetown life seemed to have returned to normal. Shops have reopened after the curfew was limited to night hours only. To show that normalcy is returning, President Bio posted a photo of him in his office working on Platform X. “The work we have to do is great and urgent and cannot be derailed by those who want to disrupt the peace and security we enjoy in the country,” he wrote in his post.

Sierra Leone, still recovering from a civil war (1991-2002) in which 50,000 people were killed, has been going through a period of tension since Bio’s re-election in June. The election results were rejected by the opposition candidate and disputed by the US and the European Union.