2023-08-07 06:00:31
Faced with the threat of intervention from neighboring countries, Niger closed its airspace this Sunday at midnight, nearly two weeks following the putsch.
The military who took power in Niger closed the country’s airspace “in the face of the threat of armed intervention” from neighboring countries. I’West African ultimatum demanding reinstatement of ousted President Mohamed Bazoum indeed expired Monday at midnight. The decision was announced Sunday evening by means of a press release from the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Fatherland (CNSP, which took power).
“Any attempt to violate airspace will result in a forceful and instantaneous response.”
Niger’s land and air borders with five countries (Algeria, Burkina Faso, Libya, Mali, Chad), closed during the July 26 coup, were reopened on August 2.
“Down with France!”
On Sunday followingnoon, some 30,000 coup supporters, many brandishing flags of Niger, Burkina Faso and Russia, engaged in a show of force in Niger’s biggest stadium in Niamey. “Today is the day of our true independence!” shouted a young man, the crowd around him shouting “Down with France, down with ECOWAS!”
Members of the CNSP arrived triumphantly at the stadium in a convoy of pick-ups, cheered and surrounded by a feverish crowd, AFP journalists noted.
The coup was condemned by all of Niger’s Western and African partners, but Nigerien soldiers received support from their counterparts in Mali and Burkina Faso, also came to power through coups in 2020 and 2022 and they too face jihadist violence. These states claim that an intervention in Niger would be a “declaration of war” on their two countries.
A winner, the jihadists
The prospect of armed intervention arouses concern and criticism. SATURDAY, nigeria senatorsa heavyweight in ECOWAS with its 215 million inhabitants and which shares a 1,500 km border with Niger, called on President Bola Tinubu to “strengthen the political and diplomatic option”.
Algeria, another neighbor of Niger and a major player in the Sahel, also expressed reservations. President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said on Saturday that an intervention would be “a direct threat” to his country. “There will be no solution without us”, he added, fearing that “the whole Sahel will be set ablaze”.
“We must prevent the catastrophic scenario of a war”, alerted a collective of researchers, specialists in the Sahel, in a column published on Saturday in the French daily Liberation. “One more war in the Sahel will not have only one winner: the jihadist movements who for years have been building their territorial expansion on the bankruptcy of states,” they write.
1691389521
#Niger #ECOWAS #ultimatum #expired #airspace #closed