Ibrahima Sory Sow

Ibrahima Sory Sow was born on 13 March 1941 in Conakry, then capital of the French colony of Guinea. In 1964 he went to East Germany to study philosophy and German at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig, graduating in 1970. He stayed on for doctoral work and was awarded doctorates by the university's philosophy and German studies departments in 1973 and 1976, which is why he was known in Guinea as Dr Ibrahima Sory Sow.

He began his working life in Leipzig, as an assistant in the faculty of history from 1976 and then as a lecturer in history and political development at the University of Leipzig from 1977.

Returning to Guinea, Sow joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1984 as an adviser in the state secretariat responsible for Guineans abroad, a post he held until 1985. Drawing on his years in Germany, he was a founding member and president of the Guinea-Germany association for economic and cultural promotion from 1986 to 1995. From 1990 to 1992 he was administrative and financial director of the Société agro-industrielle de Guinée (SAIG) in Mamou.

In 1995 he was elected to the National Assembly in its first legislature under the multiparty constitution, serving until 2002 and acting as vice-chairman of the foreign affairs committee. In 2010 he was minister of health and public hygiene in the government of the transition, which steered Guinea towards the presidential election won by Alpha Condé.

Following Condé's election, Sow was appointed ambassador to Germany. He served in Berlin from 19 October 2011 to 29 July 2014, with accreditation to several other European countries, including Austria, Sweden and the Holy See, and on 11 January 2013 he presented his credentials in Vienna as Guinea's permanent representative to the United Nations Office at Vienna. In June 2014 Condé appointed him ambassador to the People's Republic of China, and he took up the post in Beijing on 29 July 2014. He later returned to Conakry as a special minister adviser at the Presidency of the Republic, and the Guinean press described him as a long-standing political companion of Condé.

Sow was married and had three children. His family's death notice was issued in the names of the Sow, Ly, Bah, Sylla, Touré, Barry, Thiam, Diallo and Condé families. In retirement he lived in Mamou, in the Fouta Djallon region of central Guinea, where he had once worked for the national agro-industrial company. In early September 2026 the Guinean site Vision Guinée reported that he had been brought from Mamou to the Sino-Guinean hospital in Conakry for treatment.

Ibrahima Sory Sow died on Sunday 18 October 2026 in Dakar, Senegal, following an illness. He was 85. His death was announced in a notice from his family, published on 19 October 2026 by the Guinean news sites Mediaguinee and Africaguinee, which recalled his roles as a member of the first legislature, minister of health in the 2010 transitional government, ambassador to Germany and China and minister adviser at the Presidency. The family thanked the Guinean government, through the Ministry of Health, for its support.

According to the notice, his body was to arrive at Conakry airport from Dakar on Tuesday 20 October 2026. The lifting of the body was set for 11 a.m. on Wednesday 21 October at the Sino-Guinean hospital, before departure for Mamou, where funeral prayers, burial and ceremonies were to take place on Thursday 22 October.

Sow belonged to a generation of Guinean intellectuals educated in the Eastern bloc who brought that experience back into public life. His career linked scholarship, parliament, government and diplomacy: he helped found an association promoting economic and cultural ties with Germany long before he became ambassador in Berlin, and he went on to represent Guinea in Beijing at a time of growing Chinese investment in the country. He is remembered in Guinea as a former health minister of the 2010 transition and as one of the senior diplomats of the Condé years.