French troops have started leaving Niger more than two months after soldiers toppled the African country’s president, the military said on Wednesday.
More than 100 personnel left in two flights from the capital, Niamey, on Tuesday in the first of what would be several rounds of departures by the end of the year, French military spokesman Colonel Pierre Gaudilliere said.
All of them are returning to France, Gaudilliere said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Niger’s state television broadcast images of a convoy leaving a base in Ouallam in the north, saying it was bound for Chad.
The departure comes weeks after French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France would end its military presence in Niger and pull its ambassador out of the country as a result of the coup that removed Mohamed Bazoum as president in late July.
About 1,500 French troops have been operating in Niger, training its military and conducting joint operations.
Also on Tuesday, the junta gave the UN resident coordinator in Niger, Louise Aubin, 72 hours to leave the country, the Nigerien Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
The junta cited “underhanded maneuvers” by the UN secretary-general to prevent its full participation in last month’s General Assembly in New York as one of the reasons.
The military rulers had wanted former Nigerien ambassador to the UN Bakary Yaou Sangare, who was made foreign minister after the coup, to speak on its behalf at the General Assembly.
However, Bakary did not receive credentials to attend after the deposed Nigerien government’s foreign minister sent the world body a letter “informing of the end of functions of Mr Bakary as permanent representative of Niger to the United Nations,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
The junta’s decision to order Aubin out would disrupt the UN’s work in helping Nigeriens, more than 4 million of whom are in need of humanitarian assistance, and is contrary to the legal framework applicable to the UN, Dujarric said.
“Ms Aubin has been exemplary in leading the United Nations system in Niger to work impartially, and tirelessly to deliver humanitarian and development assistance,” he said.
Since seizing power, Niger’s military leaders have leveraged sentiment against France among the population and said the withdrawal signals a new step towards its sovereignty.
The US has formally declared that the ousting of Bazoum was a coup, suspending hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, as well as military assistance and training.
Niger was seen by many in the West as the last country in Africa’s Sahel region that could be partnered with to resist an insurgency linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group.
French troops have already been ousted by military regimes in Mali and Burkina Faso, which are seeing a surge in attacks.
Analysts warn that France’s withdrawal would leave a security vacuum that could be exploited.
“French forces might not have defeated these groups, but at least disrupted and limited their activities, said Rida Lyammouri, senior fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, a Moroccan-based think tank.
With the French out of the picture, these would likely “expand to areas where French forces were providing support to Nigerien forces, especially on the borders with Mali and Burkina Faso,” Lyammouri said.
Violence has already spiked since the coup. In the month after the junta seized power, violence soared by more than 40 percent, data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project showed.
Jihadi attacks targeting civilians quadrupled in August compared with the month before, and attacks against security forces spiked in the Tillaberi region, killing at least 40 soldiers, the data showed.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to