The United Arab Emirates has sent military vehicles and other security gear to Chad in support of anti-“terrorism” efforts and border protection, the oil-rich Gulf state said on Sunday.

Chad is a neighbor of Niger, where a coup late last month toppled one of the last pro-Western leaders in the terror-plagued Sahel region.

The UAE’s official news agency WAM included a photo of several desert-colored armored vehicles, with the Emirati and Chadian flags draped over two of them. Emirati firm NIMR manufactures the vehicles.

“The UAE has sent a shipment of military vehicles and security equipment to the Republic of Chad, to support its capabilities in combatting terrorism and enhancing border protection,” WAM said, without providing details on the equipment.

WAM said the two countries had signed a military cooperation agreement in June during a visit by Chad’s president, General Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, who has led the country since his father, Idriss Deby Itno, died from wounds battling rebels more than two years ago.

The military cooperation pact was one of several bilateral agreements signed between the two countries, WAM said.

N’Djamena confirmed that it had “received armored vehicles in the framework of military cooperation between Chad and the Emirates.”

“This equipment allows us to strengthen our defense forces in the framework of the struggle against terrorism,” Chad’s Defense Minister Daoud Yaya Brahim told AFP.

The UAE, which has been developing its own defense industry, has also been increasing its engagement with African nations.

Military chiefs of the West African bloc ECOWAS have agreed on a plan for a possible intervention in response to the July 26 coup, which toppled Niger’s president, Mohamed Bazoum.

Chad is not an ECOWAS member, but a Chadian government spokesman told AFP on July 30 that Deby had gone to Niger “to see what he could bring to solving the crisis.”
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Dozens of migrants were dramatically rescued by Italy as they foundered in the sea or clung to a rocky reef Sunday after three boats launched by smugglers from northern Africa shipwrecked in rough waters in separate incidents over the weekend. Survivors said some 30 fellow migrants were missing from capsized vessels.

In a particularly risky operation, two helicopters battled strong winds to pluck to safety, one by one, migrants stranded for nearly two days on a steep, rocky reef of tiny Lampedusa island. Firefighters said all the migrants, including a child, who had been clinging to the rocks after their boat smashed into the reef late Friday early Saturday, were saved.

For years, migrants have taken to smugglers’ unseaworthy vessels to make the risky crossing of the Mediterranean to try to reach southern European shores in hopes of being granted asylum or finding family or jobs, especially in northern European countries.

 

In all, 34 migrants had been stranded for two nights on the reef, including two pregnant women, said Federico Catania, a spokesperson for the Alpine assistance group whose experts were lowered from a hovering Italian air force helicopter. Migrants, some wearing shorts and flip-flops, clung to their rescuers as they were pulled up into the copter.

One of the women, eight months pregnant, was taken to hospital, said Giornale di Sicilia, a local newspaper.

Some were rescued by a firefighter helicopter and the others by an Italian air force copter, which lowered expert Alpine mountaineering rescuers down to the reef and one by one hoisted the migrants from the rocks.

The helicopter operation was launched after the coast guard determined the rough sea would make it impossible for rescue boats to approach the jagged rocks safely. A day earlier, Italian helicopters dropped food, water and thermal blankets down to the migrants on the reef.

Meanwhile, survivors of two boats that capsized on Saturday some 23 nautical miles (42.5 kilometers) southwest of Lampedusa told rescuers that about 30 fellow migrants were missing. The Coast Guard said that in two operations it saved 57 migrants and recovered the bodies of a child and of a woman.

Coast Guard members lowered a wide rope ladder and helped pull up migrants into their rescue vessel, rocked by wind-whipped waves. At least one coast guard diver jumped into the sea to help guide a raft, tossed into the Mediterranean by the rescuers, so the survivors could cling to it while it was pulled toward the vessel, according to details gleaned from a coast guard video of the rescue.

Before the two bodies were recovered on Saturday, a total of 1,814 migrants were known to have perished in 2023 while attempting the Mediterranean crossing to Italy in boats launched from Tunisia or Libya, said Flavio Di Giacomo, a spokesperson for the U.N. migration agency IOM.

 

So many had made the crossing in recent days that 2,450 migrants were currently housed at Lampedusa’s temporary residence, which has a capacity of about 400, said Ignazio Schintu, an official of the Italian Red Cross which runs the center. Once the winds slacken and the seas turn calm, Italy will resume ferrying hundreds of them to Sicily to ease the overcrowding, he told state TV.

The two boats that capsized in open seas were believed to have set out from Sfax — a Tunisian port — on Thursday, when sea conditions were good, the Italian coast guard said.

But since sea conditions were forecast to turn bad on Saturday, “it’s even more criminal for smugglers to let them leave,” said Di Giacomo of the IOM.

Voyages from Libya’s shores used to be riskier, he said, but because lately Tunisia-based smugglers have been using particularly flimsy vessels, that route across the central Mediterranean is becoming increasingly deadly.

Migrants from sub-Saharan Africa are setting out from Tunisia in “fragile iron vessels that after 24 hours often break in two, and the migrants fall into the sea,” Di Giacomo said, in an audio message from Sicily.

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, whose right-wing government includes the anti-migrant League party, has galvanized the European Union to join it in efforts to coax Tunisia’s leader, with promises of aid, to crack down on migrant smuggling. But despite a spate of visits by European leaders to Tunisia lately, the boats keep being launched nearly daily from Tunisian ports.
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The deadline has arrived Sunday for Niger’s military junta to reinstate the country’s ousted president, but the West Africa regional bloc that has threatened a military intervention faces prominent appeals to pursue more peaceful means.

Neighboring Nigeria’s Senate on Saturday pushed back against the plan by the regional bloc known as ECOWAS, urging Nigeria’s president, the bloc’s current chair, to explore options other than the use of force. ECOWAS can still move ahead, as final decisions are taken by consensus by member states, but the warning on the eve of Sunday’s deadline raised questions about the intervention’s fate.

Algeria and Chad, non-ECOWAS neighbors with strong militaries in the region, both have said they oppose the use of force or won’t intervene militarily, and neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso — both run by juntas — have said an intervention would be a “declaration of war” against them, too.

The coup is perhaps the most challenging one so far for the West Africa region struggling with military takeovers, Islamic extremism and a shift by some states toward Russia and its proxy, the Wagner mercenary group.

Niger’s ousted President Mohamed Bazoum said he is held “hostage” by the mutinous soldiers. An ECOWAS delegation was unable to meet with the junta’s leader, Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani, who analysts have asserted led the coup to avoid being fired. Now the junta has reached out to Wagner for assistance while severing security ties with former colonizer France.

Hours before Sunday’s deadline, hundreds of youth joined security forces in the darkened streets in Niger’s capital, Niamey to stand guard at a dozen roundabouts until morning, checking cars for weapons and heeding the junta’s call to watch out for foreign intervention and spies.

“I’m here to support the military. We are against (the regional bloc). We will fight to the end. We do not agree with what France is doing against us. We are done with colonization,” said Ibrahim Nudirio, one of the residents on patrol.

Some passing cars honked in support. Some people called for solidarity among African nations.

It was not immediately clear on Sunday what ECOWAS will do next.

The regional bloc shouldn’t have given the junta a one-week deadline to reinstate Bazoum but rather only up to 48 hours, said Peter Pham, former U.S. special envoy for West Africa’s Sahel region and a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council. “Now it’s dragged out, which gives the junta time to entrench itself,” he said.

The most favorable scenario for an intervention would be a force coming in with the help of those on the inside, he said.

The coup is a major blow to the United States and allies who saw Niger as the last major counterterrorism partner in the Sahel, a vast area south of the Sahara Desert where jihadists linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group have been expanding their range and beginning to threaten coastal states like Benin, Ghana and Togo.

The United States, France and European countries have poured hundreds of millions of dollars of military assistance into Niger. France has 1,500 soldiers in the country, though their fate is now in question. The U.S. has 1,100 military personnel also in Niger where they operate an important drone base in the city of Agadez.

While Niger’s coup leaders have claimed they acted because of growing insecurity, conflict incidents decreased by nearly 40% in the country compared to the previous six-month period, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project. That’s in contrast to surging attacks in Mali, which has kicked out French forces and partnered with Wagner, and Burkina Faso, which has gotten rid of French forces as well.

The uncertainty in Niger is worsening daily life for some 25 million people in one of the world’s poorest countries. Food prices are rising after ECOWAS imposed economic and travel sanctions following the coup. Nigeria, which supplies up to 90% of the electricity in Niger, has cut off some of the supply.

Humanitarian groups in Niger have warned of “devastating effects” on the lives of over 4.4 million people needing aid.

Some of Niger’s already struggling residents said military intervention is not the answer.

“Just to eat is a problem for us. So if there is a war, that won’t fix anything,” said Mohamed Noali, a Niamey resident patrolling the streets.
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Pressure on Niger’s coup leaders mounted Saturday, the eve of a deadline set by the West African regional bloc ECOWAS for the military to relinquish control or face possible armed intervention.

Former colonial power France, with which the junta broke military ties after taking power on July 26, said it would firmly back whatever course of action ECOWAS took after the Sunday deadline expired.

“The future of Niger and the stability of the entire region are at stake,” the office of French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said after she held talks in Paris with Niger’s prime minister, Ouhoumoudou Mahamadou.

ECOWAS military chiefs of staff have agreed on a plan for a possible intervention to respond to the crisis, the latest of several coups to hit Africa’s Sahel region since 2020.

“We want diplomacy to work, and we want this message clearly transmitted to them (the junta) that we are giving them every opportunity to reverse what they have done,” ECOWAS commissioner Abdel-Fatau Musah said Friday.

But he warned that “all the elements that will go into any eventual intervention have been worked out,” including how and when force would be deployed.

Niger has played a key part in Western strategies to combat jihadist insurgencies that have plagued the Sahel since 2012, with France and the United States stationing around 1,500 and 1,000 troops in the country, respectively.

Yet anti-French sentiment in the region is on the rise, while Russian activity, often through the Wagner mercenary group, has grown. Moscow has warned against armed intervention from outside Niger.

The coup “is an error of judgment that goes totally against the interests of the country,” French Armed Forces Minister Sebastien Lecornu told AFP in an interview Saturday.

Niger, one of the poorest countries in the world, relies heavily on foreign aid that could be pulled if President Mohamed Bazoum is not reinstated as chief of state, he added.

The junta has said it will meet force with force.

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune spoke out against any military intervention in neighboring Niger.

“We categorically refuse any military intervention,” he said in a television interview Saturday evening, adding that such action would be “a direct threat to Algeria.”

He stressed “there will be no solution without us (Algeria). We are the first people affected.”

“Algeria shares nearly a thousand kilometers” of border with Niger, he said.

“What is the situation today in countries that have experienced military intervention?” he said, pointing to Libya and Syria.

Mali and Burkina Faso, where military juntas have taken power since 2020, have also said that any regional intervention would be tantamount to a “declaration of war” against them.

Bazoum, 63, has been held by the coup plotters with his family in his official Niamey residence since July 26.

In a column in The Washington Post on Thursday, his first lengthy statement since his detention, Bazoum said a successful putsch would “have devastating consequences for our country, our region and the entire world.”

Bazoum, who in 2021 won an election that ushered in Niger’s first transfer of power from one civilian government to another, urged “the U.S. government and the entire international community to help us restore our constitutional order.”

Nigeria has cut electricity supplies to its neighbor Niger, raising fears for the humanitarian situation, while Niamey has closed the vast Sahel country’s borders, complicating food deliveries.

Washington said that it had suspended some aid programs but pledged that “life-saving humanitarian and food assistance will continue.”

In Nigeria, senior politicians have urged President Bola Tinubu to reconsider the threatened military intervention.

“The Senate calls on the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as chairman of ECOWAS to further encourage other leaders of ECOWAS to strengthen the political and diplomatic options,” Senate president Godswill Akpabio said.

Senators from northern Nigerian states, seven of which share a combined border of roughly 1,500 kilometers with Niger, have advised against any intervention until all other options had been exhausted.

On Saturday, Nigeria’s largest opposition grouping denounced the potential military operation in Niger as “absolutely thoughtless.”

The Coalition of United Political Parties argued: “The Nigerian military have been overstretched over the years battling terrorism and all manners of insurgency that are still very active.”

Tinubu himself on Thursday urged ECOWAS to do “whatever it takes” to achieve an “amicable resolution” of the crisis in Niger. 
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The coup in Niger will undermine the fight against resurgent terror groups in Africa’s Sahel region, France’s defense minister said this week, accusing the country’s junta of taking hostage not just President Mohamed Bazoum but the entire country.  

In an interview with AFP, French Armed Forces Minister Sebastien Lecornu praised the actions of regional West African group ECOWAS, which has given the junta until Sunday to restore democratic rule or face the threat of military action. 

The coup against Bazoum has infuriated France, which has 1,500 troops deployed in the country and was using Niger as a hub for anti-terror operations in the region, after successive coups the last two years in Mali and then Burkina Faso prompted pullouts from those countries. 

Paris has made clear it still regards Bazoum, who is being held at the presidential residence in Niamey, as Niger’s sole legitimate leader.  

Lecornu echoed comments by other Western officials and observers that the coup had come at a precarious moment when several Islamist terror groups including Boko Haram, Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) and al-Qaida’s local branch were regaining strength.  

“Not only has President Bazoum been taken hostage but also the population of Niger,” Lecornu told AFP in the interview. 

“This putsch will weaken the fight against terrorism in the Sahel, where activity by armed terrorist groups is resurging, notably taking advantage of certain failed states like Mali,” he said. 

“It’s an error of judgment that goes totally against the interests of the country,” he added. 

The French foreign ministry said earlier on Saturday it firmly supported the efforts of ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West African States) to reverse the coup, and Lecornu said on the eve of the passing of the deadline that the 15-nation bloc was showing its stature.  

“More generally, we see that ECOWAS is shouldering its responsibilities in the management of this crisis in Niger, taking strong positions in favor of respect for international law and respect for democratic processes,” he said. 

“This is an important milestone that must be welcomed and supported,” he said. 

Lecornu said there was no indication of involvement in the coup by Russian mercenary group Wagner, which Western governments say is bolstering the regimes in both Burkina Faso and Mali. 

“Wagner is not behind this coup. But it is possible that, opportunistically, Wagner can seek to help this junta as it tries to establish itself,” he said. 

Calling on Wagner, he warned, would have “catastrophic consequences” for Niger. 

“Look at the Malian situation after the departure of the French forces … 40 percent of Malian territory is out of the control of the Malian state. It is a failure. Many ECOWAS actors are aware of this.”  

Lecornu said that Paris had been aware that Bazoum’s position was fragile. 

But, he said, what was surprising was that the coup stemmed above all from a “personal dispute.”  

People close to Bazoum had told AFP he recently said he wanted to replace General Abdourahamane Tchiani as the head of his guard. 

Lecornu, meanwhile, sought to play down the extent of anti-French sentiment in Niger, despite protests outside the French embassy in Niamey, which saw signs torn down and windows smashed. 

“Three Russian flags waved in front of the French embassy, daubed with a few slogans, should neither intimidate us nor push us to hasty conclusions, as is happening too easily with some people,” he said. 
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Somalia reopened the National Blood Bank Saturday for the first time in more than 30 years, in a significant move to address the shortage of blood supplies and save lives.

Somalia Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre, who inaugurated the fresh start for the center in Mogadishu, said it’s a crucial achievement for his nation, which has been grappling with frequent disasters and violent incidents that require adequate blood supplies.

The country’s health minister, Dr. Ali Haji Adam, told VOA the revival of the center signifies a turning point in the country’s health care system.

“With the reopening of the national blood bank, we can now adequately address the overwhelming demand for blood in emergency situations and enhance the chances of saving precious lives.” Adam said.

The minister said the center will have the capacity to store hundreds of thousands of blood donations, all made by the public.

“In the past, when tragic accidents like the Zobe 1 and Zobe 2 explosions occurred in 2017 and in 2022, the public rushed to donate blood, but unfortunately there was no adequate storage facility to store the donated blood. Today that changes,” Adam explained.

The health minister highlighted the critical impact of the lack of access to safe blood in Somalia, particularly in connection with child mortality.

“The second cause of maternal death during childbirth is bleeding, but with the reopening of [the] blood bank, mothers will have access to this lifesaving resource,” Adam said.

Hospitals across Somalia have faced immense challenges in obtaining sufficient blood supplies.

Medical officials say they are optimistic that the blood bank will not only serve the immediate needs of people injured in accidents and disasters but will also prove beneficial for anemic children in Somalia.

Established in 1976, the national blood bank had not been operating for nearly three decades due to conflicts, leaving the war-torn nation without a reliable source of blood for critical medical emergencies.
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Editor’s note: Here is a fast take on what the international community has been up to this past week, as seen from the United Nations perch.

Niger military refuses to hand back power

West African regional bloc ECOWAS’s Sunday deadline to return Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum to power is approaching, but there appears to be no movement to get soldiers from the presidential guard to comply. The United Nations continues to carry out humanitarian operations in the country, resuming some aid flights this week. West Africa envoy Leonardo Santos Simão has been to Ghana and Mali and is in touch with ECOWAS. The U.N. says Simão is “trying to make the case for the peaceful resolution of the situation and for the restoration to power of the elected president, Mohamed Bazoum.”

West African Military Chiefs Draw Up Intervention Plan as Niger Talks Falter

Blinken announces millions to combat food insecurity

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced $362 million in new funding on Thursday to tackle drivers of food insecurity and enhance resilience in nearly a dozen African countries and Haiti. He also called out Russia for the consequences of its war in Ukraine on that country and global hunger during a U.N. Security Council meeting he chaired on global food insecurity.

Blinken Criticizes Russia for Impact of War on Global Hunger

Watch more on the meeting from VOA State Department Correspondent Cindy Saine:

Blinken Singles Out Russia for ‘Assault’ on Global Food Supply

Interview: U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield sat down with VOA during a very busy start to Washington’s council presidency. She spoke to VOA on Friday about how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative have affected international food security. She also discussed U.S. concerns about the attempted military coup in Niger, relations with China at the U.N. and other priority issues for the United States.

US Envoy: Some Americans Leaving Niger, Embassy Remains Open

UN science advisers say Australia’s Great Barrier Reef safe for now

United Nations scientific advisers said that Australia has taken positive steps to protect the Great Barrier Reef since a U.N. monitoring mission visited Queensland in March 2022. It won’t — for now — be listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site “in danger.” However, UNESCO said Monday that the reef remains under “serious threat.” It wants Australia to report on progress to enhance the 2,300-kilometer reef’s long-term resilience by February 1, 2024.

No UN ‘In Danger’ Listing for Australia’s Great Barrier Reef

Good news

Afghanistan and Pakistan have reported a very small number of polio infections in their region this year, fueling expectations the neighboring countries could be just months away from interrupting the endemic transmission of the crippling virus. A World Health Organization official in the region said the two countries have never been this close to eradicating the virus at the same time.

WHO: Afghanistan, Pakistan Close to Eradicating Polio

In brief

— Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed Kenya’s offer to “positively consider” leading a multinational police force to help stabilize Haiti. Haiti’s prime minister appealed to the international community in October to send help, as the island nation is in the grip of gang violence. Kenya said it will formalize its offer once the U.N. Security Council adopts a resolution with a mandate for the non-U.N. force. It plans to send an assessment mission to Haiti in the coming weeks.

— The U.N. says more than 6 million people in Sudan are now one step away from famine. Across the country, more than 20 million people are facing high levels of acute food insecurity. This is due to conflict, economic decline and mass displacement. Since violence erupted on April 15 between rival military factions, more than 3 million people have been displaced inside Sudan. The U.N. Refugee Agency says more than 855,000 others have fled to neighboring countries.

— High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said the new 19-year prison sentence imposed on Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny on Friday raises “renewed serious concerns about judicial harassment and instrumentalization of the court system for political purposes in Russia.” He said the sentence was based on “vague and overly broad charges of ‘extremism’” during a closed trial and called for his release. Navalny is already serving two other sentences amounting to more than 11 years.

— The World Health Organization said Monday that smoking rates are falling and lives are being saved as more countries implement policies and controls to curb the global tobacco epidemic. New data show that the adoption of WHO’s package of six tobacco control measures in 2008 has protected millions of people from the harmful effects of tobacco use. Without them, WHO says, there would likely be 300 million more smokers in the world today. However, 44 countries with a total population of about 2.3 billion people have not implemented any of WHO’s controls on tobacco.

— The secretary-general created a new Scientific Advisory Board this week to advise U.N. leaders on breakthroughs in science and technology and how to harness their benefits and mitigate potential risks. Guterres said the new board would strengthen the U.N.’s role as a reliable source of data and evidence and would advise him and his senior management team. He named seven scientists and scholars to the board.

Quote of note

“We cannot accept the toll this war is taking on Sudan’s children, their families. We remember the outrage when the Darfur crisis was at its utmost horror. We cannot go back to that situation. So our message to the parties to the conflict is clear: Stop the fighting and commit to a durable cessation of hostilities.”

— UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Ted Chaiban to reporters Friday on the situation facing children in Sudan, which has fallen into conflict. Chaiban recently visited the country and the border area with Chad, where many families have fled. He said nearly 14 million children in Sudan need humanitarian assistance. The U.N. children’s agency is appealing for $400 million to sustain its crisis response for the next 100 days.
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South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to receive a much-anticipated report on whether arms were loaded onto the sanctioned Russian cargo vessel, the Lady R, in Cape Town.

Ramaphosa appointed a three-member panel to investigate whether weapons were loaded onto the ship after a briefing in May from U.S. Ambassador to South Africa Reuben Brigety. He said that the Lady R was loaded with South African weapons while docked at the Simon’s Town Naval Base last year.

A diplomatic spat ensued, with Ramaphosa’s government vehemently denying any wrongdoing. Ramaphosa will decide what action to take on the report.

Dzvinka Kachur, honorary president of the Ukrainian Association of South Africa, said that the full report should be made public.

“We think it’s absolutely critical that this report is transparent to everybody as it brings legitimacy to the African leaders’ peace mission,” Kachur said. “So, it’s not going to put shade only on the South African government but on the whole initiative of many African leaders who are trying to negotiate the current Russian aggression against Ukraine.”

Kachur said it is important to remember that the war has an impact on more than Ukraine.

As of August 2, Kachur said, “Russia has bombed over 20,000 tons of grain, which resulted in the immediate response by the global market: increased prices for grain. So, we can see that Russia continues killing daily and terrorizing daily not only Ukrainian farmers, Ukrainian children, but also threatening the whole African continent with famine.”

The defense spokesperson for the main opposition Democratic Alliance, parliamentarian Kobus Marais, said he is concerned that only selective parts of the report might be made available — which may serve the African National Congress-led government’s narrative — and not provide a complete picture.

“That’s why after I received an invitation to contribute to the panel at a very, very late stage, I eventually decided not to participate,” Marais said.

He said he received regular updates on the Lady R from retired naval officers living in Simon’s Town. He recalled the communication before it departed.

“WhatsApp messages from my sources to say that 3 o’clock that morning, in other words that Friday morning, there was still heavy activity going on of cranes, lifting cargo and into the hull of the Lady R. So clearly something was loaded,” Marais said.

Political analyst Lesiba Teffo, a professor at the University of South Africa, believes the investigating panel, comprised of retired Judge Phineas Mojapelo, legal advocate Leah Gcabashe and former Justice Minister Enver Surty, can be trusted.

“Undoubtedly, I know them at a personal level, some of them, especially the chairperson,” Teffo said. “He’s a man of immense integrity, a jurist, a legal scholar.”

Regarding giving the public access to the report, Teffo said it would be understandable if Ramaphosa has been advised not to for national security reasons.

“There is a level at which state secrets cannot be accessed by anybody and everybody,” Teffo said. “That is a universal practice.”

The panel had six weeks to investigate the allegations before compiling the report.
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Ten days into a coup in Niger, life has become more challenging for U.S. forces at a counterterrorism base in a region of West Africa known as the world’s epicenter of terrorism.

Flights in and out of the country have been curtailed as coup leaders require Americans to seek permission for each flight. Fuel shortages mean the U.S. commander must sign off whenever an aircraft is refueled.

And yet, as several European countries evacuate Niger, the Biden administration is showing itself intent on staying. It sees Niger as the United States’ last, best counterterrorism outpost — and until the coup, a promising democracy — in an unstable region south of the Sahara Desert.

Abandoning it risks not only a surge in jihadist groups, but even greater influence by Russia’s Wagner mercenary group.

While some European governments shut embassies and evacuated their citizens on military flights this week, as scattered anti-Western protests broke out following the coup, U.S. diplomats sent home nonessential staff and some family this week but stayed on.

“The U.S. Embassy is open. We intend for it to remain open,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters in Washington.

President Joe Biden, in a statement Thursday, called for the Nigerien presidential guards who are holding democratically elected President Mohammed Bazoum to release him and immediately restore Niger’s “hard-earned democracy.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who praised Niger as a “model of resilience, a model of democracy, and a model of cooperation” when he visited in March, has been calling Niger’s captive president almost daily, affirming U.S. support for his safety and return to power.

In an opinion piece published late Thursday in The Washington Post, Bazoum urged the U.S. and others to help Niger restore its constitutional order. He warned that otherwise the “entire central Sahel region could fall to Russian influence via the Wagner Group” and Islamic extremists would take advantage of Niger’s instability.

“They will ramp up their efforts to target our youths with hateful anti-Western indoctrination, turning them against the very partners who are helping us build a more hopeful future,” the president wrote.

As the military overthrow stretches into its second week, U.S. officials refuse to formally call it a coup, saying they retain hope of a return to civilian government.

The firm U.S. stance in Niger is in contrast to its response to other recent international crises and armed takeovers. That includes in nearby Sudan, when fighting erupted between two rival generals in April. Then, American diplomats and security forces were among the first foreigners to shut down operations in Sudan and fly out.

The 2021 U.S. retreat from Afghanistan, itself an important territory for U.S. counterterrorism operations, signaled an administration willing to cut deep in paring its security obligations to focus attention on a main challenge, from China.

U.S. officials declined to say Thursday how far they would go to restore Niger’s government, including whether they would support any use of force by a regional security bloc known as ECOWAS.

“Right now, we’re focused on diplomacy,” said John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council. “We still believe there’s time and space for that. The window is not going to be open forever. We understand that. But we believe it’s still open. Diplomacy should still be the first tool of choice.”

Both France — Niger’s colonial ruler and the object of much of the anti-West anger in Niger — and the United States have threatened to cut off millions of dollars in aid unless the new junta steps down.

But the usual U.S. response of sanctions and isolation when military figures seize power in West Africa is riskier now given the avidity of the jihadists and Kremlin-allied forces.

John Lechner, a West Africa analyst and author on the Wagner Group, sensed more analysts proposing some in-between solution, such as the U.S. retaining security ties in exchange for mere promises of a transition back toward democracy.

U.S. personnel, including members of the 409th Air Expeditionary Group, remain at U.S. counterterror outposts in Niger. That includes Air Base 201 in Agadez, a city of more than 100,000 people on the southern edge of the Sahara, and Air Base 101 in Niamey, Niger’s capital.

Americans have made Niger their main regional outposts for wide-ranging patrols by armed drones and other counterterror operations against Islamic extremist movements that over the years have seized territory, massacred civilians and battled foreign armies.

Air Base 201 operates in a sandstorm-whipped, remote area of Niger that serves as a gateway to the Sahara Desert for migrants and traders. In sandstorms, U.S. military personnel wear goggles and face masks as the gritty sky turns red or black.

In heat that can reach well over 38 degrees Celsius, U.S. military personnel in their free time have built classrooms for local schools, created weekly English-language discussion groups, helped villagers find a lost 2-year-old girl in a nighttime desert search, challenged a local soccer team to a match, offered residents “American snacks” for International Women’s Day and delivered pencils, prayer mats, soap and other aid to communities in what one sergeant described as “the unforgiving environment of Africa.”

A civilian aviation notice this week warned that refueling was being limited at Agadez since the coup, with every single gassing up requiring approval from the 409th’s commander.

Niger’s junta closed the country’s airspace on July 27. Since then, the U.S. government has negotiated access for flights on a case-by-case basis, a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly said on the condition of anonymity.

Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said most U.S. forces in Niger are staying inside their military bases and are not conducting training exercises as they normally would.

Americans have invested years and hundreds of millions of dollars in training Nigerien forces.

In 2018, fighters loyal to the Islamic State group ambushed and killed four American service members, four Nigeriens and an interpreter.

West Africa recorded over 1,800 extremist attacks in the first six months of this year, which killed nearly 4,600 people, according to ECOWAS.

The Islamic extremist group Boko Haram operates in neighboring Nigeria and Chad. Along Niger’s borders with Mali and Burkina Faso, the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara and al-Qaida affiliate Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin pose greater threats.

“Affiliates, franchises and branches of IS and AQ are probably most robust in that part of the world, outside of Afghanistan. So, you know, there’s a lot at stake,” said Colin Clarke, research director at The Soufan Group security and intelligence consultancy.

If the coup in Niger sticks, it will alter what has been U.S. security forces’ best partnership in the region and create momentum for those forces to reduce their presence. Especially after any U.S. military drawdown, domestic turmoil from the coup could draw Niger’s troops away from the country’s borders, allowing jihadist groups to make further inroads into Niger.

Russia’s Wagner Group mercenaries already are a force in neighboring Mali and the nearby Central African Republic, supporting and protecting anti-Western governments. Wagner forces usually take a share of countries’ mineral resources in return. In Niger, the country’s notable resource is high-grade uranium ore.

Wagner forces are notoriously bad at fighting Islamic extremists, with scorched-earth tactics that only draw civilians to the jihadists’ side, Clarke said.

And when Wagner is done extracting gold and other resources from a country, “they’re out, right? And the situation is then fourfold worse, and who’s there to clean it up?” he said.
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As West African states consider intervening in Niger to restore democracy one week after a military coup, hundreds of supporters of Niger’s junta gathered in the capital Niamey on Thursday to protest sanctions imposed by the country’s neighbors.

General Abdourahamane Tchiani, the former head of Niger’s presidential guard, ousted President Mohamed Bazoum last week in a military coup and declared himself head of state.

Tchiani said the power grab was necessary because of ongoing insecurity in the country caused by an ongoing Islamist insurgency.

But violent incidents in Niger actually decreased by almost 40% in the first six months of 2023 compared to the previous six months, according to data published Thursday by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, or ACLED.

ACLED is a crisis-monitoring group based in the United States. The group’s data also indicate that insecurity in Niger was improving thanks to strategies used by Bazoum’s government and assistance from French and U.S. forces.

In addition to imposing sanctions, the main regional bloc, the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, said it could authorize the use of force if soldiers do not restore Bazoum to power by Sunday.

U.S. President Joe Biden called Thursday for Bazoum’s immediate release.

Biden said in a statement that Niger is “facing a grave challenge to its democracy.”

“The Nigerien people have the right to choose their leaders,” he said. “They have expressed their will through free and fair elections — and that must be respected.”

Meanwhile, China’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday it believes Niger and regional countries have the capacity to find a “political resolution” to the current situation, which it refrained from explicitly calling a coup.

“We believe that Niger and regional countries have the wisdom and capability to find a political resolution to the current situation,” China’s Foreign Ministry said in a written statement to Reuters.

“President Bazoum is a friend of China, it is hoped that his personal safety is guaranteed, and that relevant parties in Niger peacefully manage differences through dialogue with the fundamental interests of the nation and the people as a starting point,” the ministry added.

ECOWAS defense chiefs were scheduled to complete a second day of talks in neighboring Nigeria about the situation.

Days after the coup, ECOWAS enacted sanctions against the coup leaders and set a Sunday deadline for Bazoum to be reinstated with the potential of using military force if he is not.

Tchiani, who declared himself the new head of state, said in a televised address Wednesday that the junta “rejects these sanctions altogether and refuses to give into any threats, wherever they come from. We refuse any interference in the internal affairs of Niger.”

Abdel-Fatau Musah, ECOWAS commissioner for political affairs, peace and security, told reporters Wednesday in Abuja that the military option was a “last resort” for the West African bloc. But Musah said preparations had to be made for that possibility.

“There is a need to demonstrate that we cannot only bark but can bite,” he said.

Some information is from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Cameroon said Thursday that at least 12 people have been killed in new attacks by Boko Haram in Darak, a fishing island on Cameroon’s northern border with Chad and Nigeria. Military officials say troops have been deployed to stop more incursions and attacks by the Nigeria-based insurgent group.

Regional officials say the 12 corpses were discovered by civilians.

Government troops say civilians have escaped to safer locations on the island. The military says ongoing sporadic attacks make it difficult to establish a total number of casualties.

Midjiyawa Bakari, the governor of Cameroon’s Far North region where Darak is located, said this week’s wave of attacks is devastating to the psychological and physical well-being of civilians in Darak, who have not experienced Boko Haram atrocities for more than a year. He said he has asked the military to immediately collaborate with local militias and put an end to the infiltration which killing and looting jihadists have been carrying out in Darak this week.

Bakari said Cameroon has remobilized militias and civilians to assist troops fighting the jihadists by reporting strangers and armed men hiding in border towns and villages to government troops.

The government said heavily armed militants arrived in Darak on Monday on motorboats through the vast Lake Chad. Eight of the 12 corpses already found have been identified as fishers in the lake, the government said. Civilians say at least three villages on the island have been attacked in the previous 48 hours, with attackers shooting indiscriminately, and looting.

Military officials in northern Cameroon say troops have been deployed to stop the incursion.

Cameroon said the deadliest Boko Haram attack in Darak occurred on June 10, 2019, when about 20 soldiers and 16 civilians were killed in an incursion the military said involved at least 300 heavily armed Boko Haram fighters. Cameroon said close to 90 jihadists were killed in the attack and eight were taken into custody.

Cameroon said other attacks, with fewer casualties have been reported monthly since the June 2019 attack.

Saibou Issa, a conflict resolution specialist at the University of Maroua in Cameroon, said the attacks are an indication that Boko Haram is still very active.

Issa said new Boko Haram attacks and atrocities occur in towns and villages where relative peace had returned, and troops of the Multinational Joint Task Force of the Lake Chad Basin Commission had temporarily withdrawn. He said troops fighting Boko Haram should be on alert because the militants are still very active.

The Multinational Joint Task Force of the Lake Chad Basin Commission comprises troops from Cameroon, Nigeria, Chad and Niger. Cameroon’s military says the task force has ordered the deployment of troops to villages and towns in the Lake Chad Basin where Darak is located.

In February, the task force said Boko Haram attacks were drastically reduced last year, and scores of children were rescued in operations that killed 800 militants in the Lake Chad basin.

The United Nations says 36,000 people have been killed and 3 million have fled their homes since 2009, when fighting between Nigerian government troops and Boko Haram militants deteriorated into an armed conflict and spread to Cameroon, Niger and Chad.
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The White House says it’s closely watching a coup in Niger, as the US Embassy prepares to evacuate staff from the West African nation. With the coup plotters staring down a Sunday deadline to reinstate the deposed democratically elected president, analysts say Moscow and Beijing are also monitoring Niamey – and looking for opportunities to widen their influence. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Washington.
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