Guinean soldiers on Saturday shot and killed a man trying to block a key mining rail link as President Lansana Conte made a surprise visit to the town of Boke following violent protests, locals told AFP.

Family members of Karamba Drame told AFP he was shot by soldiers Saturday as he was trying to make sure the army did not remove barricades erected a day before by protesters to block a train used to ferry bauxite from the Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinee (CBG, Guinea Bauxite Company).

The 25-year-old is the second victim of the protests in Boke by locals angry at CBG for failing to improve their living conditions.

On Friday a child died after being hit with furniture from a house which was being looted, police sources who did not want to be named, told AFP.

Although Boke appeared calm, some residents reported gun shots in the town centre earlier Saturday. A police officer, who asked not to be named, told AFP: `We are firing warning shots to keep the people from protesting today.`

Conte, who is tought to be in frail health and did not even attend the country`s 50th independence celebrations earlier this month, made a surprise visit to the mining town to try to calm `his brothers`, a government source told AFP.

Conte, who has ruled the mineral rich but poverty stricken Guinea with an iron fist since 1984, hails from from the Soussou ethnic group which is dominant in Boke.

The demonstrators want the mining to pay for the reconnection of drinking water supplies, repair roads in Boke and improve the local electricity network.

Guinea is the world`s top producer of bauxite, which is used to make aluminium, and CBG has been mining bauxite in the Boke region since 1973.

According to local residents the president met with local officials and civilians for over an hour but no details of the meetings emerged. Conte left for Conakry after the meeting, local sources told AFP.

In recent years, Conte has violently cracked down on any protests against his regime.

A train, with about a 100 carriages loaded with bauxite, is still blocked in Boke Saturday after locals threatend to lie down on the tracks if it moved, residents told AFP.

While Guinea has a vast mineral wealth with bauxite, iron, gold and uranium deposits, most of its nine million inhabitants live on less than a dollar a day.

Earlier this month the head of a local development organisation said it had written to the government explaining that local people were `tired of suffering in poverty in the vicinity of a mine which is enriching the rest of the planet. bm/sb/ach