The first plane carrying mostly French and other Europeans evacuated from Niger landed in Paris yesterday, a week after a coup toppled one of the last pro-Western leaders in the Sahel.
Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum was detained by his own presidential guard in a third coup in as many years in the Sahel, following putsches in fellow former French colonies Mali and Burkina Faso.
West African leaders, supported by their Western partners, have threatened to use force to reinstate the democratically elected Bazoum and slapped financial sanctions on the junta.
Photo: AFP
After protests against France unleashed by the coup, Paris on Tuesday said that it would withdraw its nationals from the capital, Niamey.
“There are 262 people on board the plane, an Airbus A330, including a dozen babies,” French Minister of Foreign Affairs Catherine Colonna told reporters before the first evacuation flight landed at Paris Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport shortly after 1:30am. “Nearly all the passengers are compatriots” along with “some European nationals.”
There were also Nigeriens, Portuguese, Belgians, Ethiopians and Lebanese on board, the ministry told reporters at the airport.
The evacuation was “well organized, it was fairly quick, for me everything went well,” said Bernard, who had been working in Niger for the EU for two months.
“In Niamey, there are no particular tensions in the city, no particular stress, people go about their business,” he said.
“It feels good,” said Raissa Kelembho, who returned from Niger with her two boys.
“At one point, there was a feeling of insecurity, we knew that everything could change,” said Kelembho, whose husband remained in Niger for work.
A second plane carrying French, Nigerien, German, Belgian, Canadian, American, Austrian and Indian nationals was also due to land, with a total of four flights planned.
The coup has sounded alarm bells in France, Niger’s former colonial master and traditional ally.
Paris blamed the evacuation on the “violence that took place against our embassy” and the risk of “closure of the airspace that would leave our compatriots without the possibility to leave.”
However, the Niger junta late on Tuesday announced that it had reopened the country’s land and air borders with five neighboring countries.
It is the first time that France has staged a large-scale evacuation in its former colonies in the Sahel.
However, the army chief of staff announced that a military pullout of France’s 1,500 troops from Niger was “not on the agenda.”
In Berlin, the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs urged “all German nationals” to take up the French evacuation offer.
It said that fewer than 100 German civilians were believed to be in Niger.
In Washington, the White House said that the US was not joining European allies in evacuating citizens for now, citing a lack of immediate danger.
About 1,100 US troops are in Niger.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Bazoum on Tuesday and “conveyed the continued unwavering support of the United States for President Bazoum and Niger’s democracy.”
“He underscored that the United States rejects efforts to overturn the constitutional order,” the state department said in a statement.
On Sunday the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) slapped sanctions on Niger and warned it might use force as it gave the coup leaders a week to reinstate Bazoum.
The following day, the junta accused France of seeking to “intervene militarily,” which France denied, while junta-ruled Mali and Burkina Faso warned that any military intervention in Niger would be a “declaration of war” against them.
The military chiefs of ECOWAS members were to meet in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, from yesterday to tomorrow to discuss the coup.
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