2023-08-03 05:30:26
JONATHAN SARAGO / AFP Passengers waiting for the French plane to take off at Diori Hamani International Airport in Niamey on August 2, 2023, as part of the third evacuation, a week following a coup.
JONATHAN SARAGO / AFP
After the coup in Niger, the evacuation of French nationals is over, said Thursday, August 3 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
INTERNATIONAL – “The evacuation operation for nationals wishing to leave the country has ended”, announces this Thursday, August 3, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on its site Internet. On Wednesday evening, a fifth and final French government plane landed at Niamey’s civilian airport to evacuate French and European nationals. We do not know this morning if the plane is now on French soil.
« Any French national still present in Niger and finding himself in difficulty can report himself. on an email address and a dedicated telephone number (+33 1 43 17 51 00), specifies the Quai d’Orsay.
France decided on Tuesday to evacuate its nationals from Niger, where a coup d’etat took place, justifying this decision by the attack on its embassy on Sunday and the closure of the borders which prevented its fellow citizens from traveling by air.
Nearly 1,000 people evacuated
Meanwhile, Niger’s land and air borders with five neighboring countries have been reopened. The staff also specified that the 4th plane had left Niamey and “should land at Roissy around 1 a.m. local”.
This fourth flight brings the number of evacuees to 992, including 560 French, “alongside many foreign nationals”said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a new message posted on Twitter, renamed X. After the third evacuation flight, 736 people had been evacuated, including 498 French people, he had announced earlier.
While some French people criticized the evacuation operation in the press, a diplomatic source pointed out to journalists: “some may not agree, but more than 600 French people have expressed the wish to leave and we are supporting them”.
Mediation efforts
Asked regarding a possible military intervention by the countries of ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States, this source recalled that France wanted “a return to constitutional order because the coup attempt destabilizes Niger”.
“Evils such as the rise of terrorism and negative economic and development dynamics are a real risk as a result of this attempt” coup, added the same source. She also stressed that Paris was not “in a logic of military intervention”. “Our logic is precisely to avoid it and we hope that the putschists will hear the message of ECOWAS tomorrow”.
A meeting of West African Chiefs of Staff opened on Wednesday in Abuja. It must end on Friday, two days before the expiry on Sunday of an ultimatum from ECOWAS demanding a return to the previous order.
France supports mediation efforts and “Nigeria has a special role in leading to the success and return of the constitutional order that the entire international community wishes for the good of Niger and regional stability”, also reacted the diplomatic source. Paris also notes the “ECOWAS’ new posture” compared to previous coups, which are “a plague for the region”.
“We feel that ECOWAS is very unanimous on the issue, with a message that has never been so firm. And never (before, have we had) such strong international unanimity that the new coup challenges the stability of the whole region”also commented the diplomatic source.
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