Caroline Baudry, with AFP / Photo credits: Balima Boureima / ANADOLU AGENCY / Anadolu Agency via AFP
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7:38 p.m., August 09, 2023
Niger’s military regime, which emerged from a coup, accused France on Wednesday of violating the closure of Niger’s airspace and “liberating terrorists”, which it said constitutes “a real plan to destabilize our country”. “French forces took off” Wednesday from N’Djamena, Chad, “a military plane” at “6:01 a.m. local time”, says a statement from the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Fatherland (CNSP) which took power in Niger. , adding: “This aircraft voluntarily cut off all contact with air traffic control at the entrance to our space from 6:39 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. local time”.
At the end of the afternoon, Paris denied the allegations of the military regime. “The flight carried out this morning (Wednesday) was authorized and coordinated with the Nigerien army,” a French government source told AFP. “And no terrorist has been released by French forces,” the source added.
Washington says it is “deeply worried” about the health of the detained Nigerien president
The United States expressed on Wednesday its deep concern about the health of Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum, detained since the July 26 coup in this Sahel country. “We are seriously concerned for his health and safety and that of his family,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said following a call between US Foreign Minister Antony Blinken. , and President Bazoum.
The junta asks the people to remain “mobilized and vigilant”
In the same press release, the CNSP accuses Paris of having “unilaterally released terrorist prisoners”, the word “terrorist” designating armed jihadists. After their release, these jihadists participated in “a planning meeting” for an attack “on military positions in the three-border area” between Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali, in western Niger, adds the CNSP.
Without making a direct link with this “release” of jihadist prisoners, he announced in the same press release that, on Wednesday morning, “the position of the Boukou National Guard”, in the three-border area, “was the subject of “an attack whose “assessment has not yet been established”. “We are witnessing a real plan to destabilize our country”, affirms the CNSP, whose aim is to “discredit” it and “create a break with the people who support it, to create a feeling of generalized insecurity”. Consequently, the Defense and Security Forces (FDS) are asked to “raise their level of alert throughout the territory” and “to the people to remain mobilized and vigilant”.
On the eve of an ECOWAS summit
These accusations against the former colonial power in the region, particularly targeted since the July 26 coup, come on the eve of a summit of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Nigeria.
This organization, considered “in the pay” of France by the soldiers who took power in Niamey, threatened them with armed intervention in the event of a failure of diplomacy in order to restore to office the ousted Nigerien President, Mohamed Boom.