Niger’s regional and Western allies have announced a series of sanctions against the country, one of the poorest in the world, following the July 26 coup.
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The World Food Program has started distributing food aid in Ethiopia’s war-scarred Tigray region in a test of new monitoring measures, the United Nations agency said on Tuesday.

WFP and U.S. aid agency USAID halted food aid to Africa’s second-most populous country in June after discovering that supplies were not reaching those in need, raising fears that millions of Ethiopians would be left in desperate straits.

On Tuesday, the U.N. food agency said it had “started distributing 15-kilogram (33-pound) pre-packed bags of wheat to just over 100,000 people” as part of a pilot project with improved monitoring mechanisms.

“On July 31, the World Food Program started testing and verifying enhanced controls and measures for delivering food assistance in four districts of Tigray,” it said in a message to AFP.

The new measures include tracking supplies and the digital registration of recipients to prevent aid from falling into the wrong hands.

Millions of Ethiopians are facing severe food shortages following a brutal two-year war in Tigray as well as a punishing drought that has also struck Somalia and parts of Kenya.

A spokesperson for USAID, the U.S. government’s main international aid agency, told AFP that U.S. food assistance in Ethiopia remains paused.

“We are committed to resuming food assistance as quickly as possible once we can be confident our assistance is reaching the most vulnerable that it is intended for,” the spokesperson said.

The Amhara region, which neighbors Tigray, has also witnessed clashes between a local militia and the national army in recent weeks, affecting humanitarian operations there, according to the World Health Organization.

“WFP also plans to begin registering populations and rolling out the new enhanced control measures for targeted, vulnerable people in Amhara, Afar and Somali regions, as well as other parts of Tigray region, as soon as possible,” the agency said.

The escalation in violence in Amhara prompted Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government to declare a six-month state of emergency there last week.

On Tuesday, Ethiopian Airlines canceled flights to Bahir Dar, the capital of Amhara, because of the clashes. Last week, the airline canceled flights to three other airports in the northern region.

The fresh unrest comes nine months after the end of the war in Tigray, which drew in fighters from Amhara.

Tensions have been rising since April, when the federal government announced it was dismantling regional forces across Ethiopia.
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Botswana is aiming to recruit at least 1,000 pharmacists, some from abroad, after nurses said they would no longer dispense medications.

Nurses stopped filling prescriptions to patients last month, with the Botswana Nurse Union saying that doing so was outside their scope of work.

The situation has led to congestion at the country’s pharmacies and left some patients unable to get their medications at all.

Now the government is looking to bring in pharmacists from abroad to fill the void and avert a health crisis.

Speaking in parliament Monday, Botswana’s assistant health minister, Sethumo Lelatisitswe, said that despite recruiting about 100 pharmacists over the last month, the shortage is still severe.

“We only have a few pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in the market,” Lelatisitswe said. “In the coming weeks, we would have exhausted the Botswana market. However, we would still not have been able to replace all nurses and midwives that have been dispensing medications from as long ago as the birth of our health system. Our local tertiary institutions do not produce enough pharmacists and pharmacy technicians who can be engaged to serve our people.”

The Botswana Nurse Union vice president responsible for labor, Oreeditse Kelebakgosi, said that it was unlawful for nurses to be dispensing medication and that it is only proper for the government to recruit pharmacists.

Kelebakgosi applauded the government’s move to recruit from outside Botswana, saying the effort would bring relief to the nurses who have been dispensing medication outside their scope of work.

But assistant minister Lelatisitswe said it will not be an easy task to recruit the health-care professionals.

“We need close to a thousand pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to have all our clinics and health facilities adequately covered,” he said. “Given the shortage of these professionals in the market, including regionally … it may take up to five years to have these numbers.”

Lelatisitswe acknowledged that the nurses’ decision has led to a crisis.

HIV activist Bonosi Segadimo says the shortage of pharmacists will negatively impact the distribution of ARV drugs. Botswana has among the world’s highest HIV prevalence with nearly 21% of the adult population living with the virus.

“This issue of nurses stopping the dispensing of drugs is a very bad idea,” said Segadimo. “Most clients have to take public transport to go and get their medications from clinics, where there are no pharmacists.”

Botswana’s problem is not an isolated one in Southern Africa, where health-care delivery has been disrupted by professionals leaving for better pay in wealthier countries, particularly in the United Kingdom.
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A group representing survivors of the Rwandan genocide Tuesday expressed anger and disappointment at a U.N. appeal court ruling that a suspect should be urgently considered for release after he was declared unfit for trial.

The Ibuka association representing survivors slammed the decision in the case of former business tycoon Felicien Kabuga, accused of setting up a hate broadcaster that fueled the 1994 slaughter of around 800,000 people.

“The ruling to potentially release Kabuga is a deliberate insult to the deep wounds that genocide survivors suffer,” Naphtali Ahishakiye, executive secretary of the group, told AFP.

The survivors are “extremely angry and disappointed,” said Ahishakiye, saying it set a “deplorable precedent.” 

In June, judges found Kabuga was not fit enough to go on trial but ruled he should still undergo a stripped down legal process without a verdict.

Appeals judges rejected that on Monday, saying the lower court made an “error of law” and ruling Kabuga, who is 88 according to officials but claims to be 90, should be urgently considered for release.

Captured in Paris 2020 after two decades on the run, wheelchair-bound Kabuga went on trial last September and pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors accuse Kabuga, once one of Rwanda’s richest men, of being the driving force behind Radio-Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), which urged ethnic Hutus to kill Tutsis with machetes.

But judges said in June that medical experts had now found he has “severe dementia.”

The court first put the trial on hold in March over health concerns, having earlier dismissed bids by Kabuga’s defense lawyers to have him declared unfit to stand trial.

Ahishakiye slammed Monday’s outcome and said his group was now considering cutting ties with the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals.

“Aligning with a court that continuously shields genocide perpetrators at the expense of justice for survivors has lost its rationale,” hence “our continued cooperation with this court is untenable — it serves no purpose.”

Prosecutor Serge Brammertz said he had carefully reviewed the Appeal Chamber’s decision and “its decision must be respected, even if the outcome is dissatisfying.”

“My thoughts are with the victims and survivors of the Genocide,” said Brammertz, recognizing that “this outcome will be distressing and disheartening to them.”

He cited the recent arrest of former police inspector Fulgence Kayishema, accused of a massacre, as evidence the Kabuga ruling “is not the end of the [overall] justice process.”

Defense counsel Emmanuel Altit told AFP he welcomed the appeal judges’ ruling. 
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The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for an attack in the Menaka region of northeastern Mali last week, which it said killed 16 soldiers.

Mali’s ruling junta has not spoken about the incident since reports of it began to emerge on Aug. 3.

In its Amaq propaganda platform, the Islamic State said fighters affiliated with it ambushed a Malian army convoy traveling toward Niger.

Dozens of soldiers were injured, and the fighting lasted about an hour, the group said.

Mali has since 2012 been battling a jihadist insurgency that began in the north and spread to the center of the country and to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger.

The Menaka region has for months been at the forefront of a push by Islamic State in the Greater Sahara.

A recent Human Rights Watch report accused the group of being behind “hundreds” of deaths and forcing thousands from their homes since the start of the year.
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Kenyan authorities have exhumed more than 400 bodies from shallow graves linked to a cult whose leader is accused of asking his followers to starve themselves. The tragedy has sparked debate in Kenya about how to protect both religious freedom and the lives of worshippers. Francis Ontomwa has more from Nairobi. (Camera: Amos Wangwa)
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A top U.S diplomatic official has visited Niger to urge the nation’s new military rulers to restore the West African nation’s democratically elected president to power.

Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said on the social media platform X, formally known as Twitter, that she traveled to the capital Niamey “to express grave concern at the undemocratic attempts to seize power and urged a return to constitutional order.”

Nuland told reporters in a conference call Monday that she met with the “self-proclaimed chief of defense” Brigadier General Moussa Salaou Barmou and three other military officials during her visit, describing the talks as “extremely frank and at times, quite difficult.”

She said the military officials are “quite firm on how they want to proceed,” which she says does not “comport with the constitution of Niger.” She says the coup leaders refused her request to meet directly with deposed President Mohamed Bazoum and his family, as well as coup leader General Abdourahamane Tchiani.

Nuland, who is also the current acting deputy secretary of state, says she was asked by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to travel to Niamey to “see if we could resolve these issues diplomatically” and to make clear to the junta that Washington could cut off economic and other kinds of support to Niger “if democracy is not restored.”

In an interview with Radio France International Monday, Secretary Blinken said a diplomatic solution “is certainly the preferred way of resolving this situation.”

A spokesman for the regional bloc Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) said leaders will hold an extraordinary summit Thursday in Abuja, the capital of neighboring Nigeria, to discuss the crisis in Niger after the junta’s leaders defied a deadline to reinstate President Bazoum or face a possible military intervention.

After the ECOWAS deadline passed Sunday for Niger’s military to stand down, military leaders there issued a pledge to defend the country and closed Niger’s airspace.

“Niger’s armed forces and all our defense and security forces, backed by the unfailing support of our people, are ready to defend the integrity of our territory,” a junta representative said in a statement on national television.

The spokesman said any attempt to fly over the country will be met with “an energetic and immediate response.”

International airlines have begun to divert flights around Niger’s airspace. The United Nations said its humanitarian flights have also been grounded because of the closed airspace.

Also Monday, neighboring Mali said it and Burkina Faso would send a delegation of officials to Niger to show support for the military rulers.

Both countries — which have fallen to military coups in recent years — have said military intervention in Niger would be tantamount to a declaration of war.

Alex Vines, the head of the Africa program at think tank Chatham House, told VOA that he is not surprised Mali and Burkina Faso have supported Niger.

“They’re afraid of a regional economic community intervening and restoring democracy. And that’s not what they stand for,” he said.

Another nation led by coup leaders, Guinea, has also expressed support for Niger’s military takeover.

Vines said he was surprised by Guinea’s support because the junta there has been trying to distance itself from the other juntas.

“I guess it shows how fearful they are that a values-based intervention that is about preserving and supporting democratic processes and accountable government is something that they don’t welcome,” he said.

On Friday, West African defense chiefs drew up a plan for a possible military intervention in Niger if the country’s military leaders did not release and reinstall Bazoum.

“All the elements that will go into any eventual intervention have been worked out here, including the resources needed, the how and when we are going to deploy the force,” Abdel-Fatau Musah, ECOWAS commissioner for political affairs, peace and security, said Friday.

The 15-nation bloc has sent military forces into member states in the past. However, it is not clear if ECOWAS members will support military action in Niger to resolve the current crisis.

Nigeria’s Senate urged the bloc to focus on political and diplomatic options instead of the use of force.

Italy urged ECOWAS to extend the deadline for Niger’s military leaders to back down, and called for a diplomatic solution.

“A solution must be found. It’s not set that there is no way other than war,” Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told La Stampa newspaper.

Niger’s military rulers have not shown much interest in negotiating.

An ECOWAS diplomatic delegation that arrived in Niger’s capital, Niamey, on Thursday ended up leaving without meeting Tchiani or Bazoum.

Residents in Niamey have been stockpiling food and supplies in anticipation of a tense week ahead. Some have expressed support for the coup and used the situation to express anti-French sentiment. Protesters in Niamey on Sunday slaughtered a rooster — a national symbol of France — painted with the country’s tricolor.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres reiterated Monday his “full support to ECOWAS’ ongoing mediation efforts,” and expressed concern over the continued detention of Bazoum and the failure so far to restore constitutional order in Niger, according to a U.N. spokesperson.

Besides the United Nations’ reaction, the coup has been widely condemned by the African Union and Western governments. U.S. President Joe Biden called Thursday for Bazoum’s immediate release, adding that Niger is “facing a grave challenge to its democracy.”

Blinken said Friday that the U.S. has paused some aid programs that benefited Niger’s government, but said humanitarian and food aid would continue.

The State Department said Monday the paused aid is valued at more than $100 million and includes development assistance, security assistance and law enforcement assistance.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the suspended aid could be reversed if Niger’s military leaders reinstate the elected government.

“If the junta leaders would step aside and restore constitutional order tomorrow, that pause would … go away and security systems would be reinstated,” he said.

Miller said U.S. officials are still able to communicate with Bazoum and that their most recent contact was on Monday. He also said there has also been direct U.S. contact with Niger military leaders, urging them to step aside.

Niger, one of the world’s poorest countries, has the highest fertility rate in Africa and depends heavily on foreign aid.

Bazoum, who has been under house arrest with his family since July 26, described himself in a Washington Post column Thursday as a “hostage,” and warned that if the mutiny proved successful, “it will have devastating consequences for our country, our region and the entire world.”

He called on “the U.S. government and the entire international community to help us restore our constitutional order.”

On July 26, Tchiani, the former head of Niger’s presidential guard, declared himself the country’s new leader, saying the power grab was necessary because of ongoing insecurity in the country caused by an Islamist insurgency.

Niger has been a partner in the fight against counterterrorism in the Sahel, where militants linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State are operating. Both the United States and France have troops in Niger focused on counterterror operations.

Last week, Niger’s military leaders read a decision on national television ending bilateral military agreements with France, Niger’s former colonial ruler.

It is not clear what will happen to the French military presence consisting of 1,500 troops or the 1,000 U.S. military personnel in the country.

Pentagon officials said Monday there was “no change” to the force posture of the U.S. troops in Niger and no plans to evacuate them.

VOA correspondents Anita Powell at the White House and Margaret Besheer at the United Nations contributed to this report. Some information for this article came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Washington is closely watching Niger’s coup leaders after they chose not to meet a Sunday deadline to return the elected president to power, and after regional powers failed to act on their threat of military action. Meanwhile, the U.S. has paused aid to the impoverished West African nation. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Washington on what’s next for Niger.
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Appeals judges have thrown out a decision by a United Nations court for a procedure to hear evidence against an elderly Rwandan genocide suspect after he was declared unfit to face trial. That means Félicien Kabuga’s trial will never be completed.
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Nigerians in the border regions with Niger are calling on West African bloc ECOWAS to rethink sanctions on the country following last month’s coup. Residents say the closure of land borders has impacted their businesses and the cost of living has increased with no goods entering Nigeria from its neighbor.

When the West African regional bloc ECOWAS announced border closures with Niger on July 31, Nigerian truck driver Buwa Mohammed did not expect immediate repercussions.

For more than 10 years, he had been shuttling goods and passengers from Nigeria’s Jigawa state to Niger. Jigawa shares a border with the Zinder region in the Republic of Niger.

But now, speaking to VOA by phone, Mohammed said his business has come to a halt and it’s impacting his family.

Soldiers from Niger’s presidential guard overthrew President Mohamed Bazoum on July 26 and have held him hostage in defiance of calls from ECOWAS and Western allies for him to be released and restored to power.

In addition to closing land borders, ECOWAS has declared a no-flight zone over Niger and announced the seizure of public assets in member states.

The regional bloc had issued a seven-day notice for the military leaders to restore democratic order and threatened to unleash regional security forces on Niger if they failed to respond.

The deadline passed Sunday and anxiety is rising over the uncertainty of the situation.

Like Buwa Mohammed, Hassan Mohammed, a phone trader, worries that a military invasion would make matters worse.

“I’m not happy with that because we trade, they come to do business here and we also do business in their market but this has all stopped,” he said in Hausa. “Things are even worse for these past two weeks. Even eating has become a problem. We are begging the government to resolve this issue. We pray for God to intervene.”

Over the weekend, Nigerian lawmakers from the border states warned against a military invasion of Niger, saying it will have serious consequences.

Nigerian economist Emeka Okengwu agrees.

“It does not necessarily need to be through cohesion or by military aggression,” Okengwu said. “Niger is a major trade route in the old trans-Saharan trade routes; a lot of the animals slaughtered during our festivities actually come from that route.”

Okengwu added that a lot of food, especially cowpea, comes from around that area. It’s also one of the fastest routes to the sea.

“The impact on the economy will be very bad,” Okengwu said.

In 2021, trade between Nigeria and Niger reached $180 million, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, an online data analysis group.

As of Monday, the sanctions remained in place and the next course of action by ECOWAS remained unclear. On Sunday, Nigerian President and ECOWAS chair Bola Tinubu met with governors of Sokoto, Kebbi, Yobe, Borno and Jigawa, as part of consultations on the matter.
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Two people were fatally shot Monday on a fifth day of violent protests in the South African city of Cape Town — sparked by a dispute last week between minibus taxi drivers and authorities. 

A person was killed, and three others were wounded in a shooting near the Cape Town International Airport after a group of protesters pelted a car with stones and the driver responded by firing shots at them, police said. The shooting happened while minibus taxis blockaded a road near the airport, police said. 

Police said the shooter would be investigated for murder and attempted murder. 

A man died of multiple gunshot wounds in a separate shooting that police said they believed was also related to the protests. 

The unrest on the outskirts of South Africa’s second-largest city followed an announcement last Thursday of a weeklong strike by minibus taxi drivers, who are angered at what they call heavy-handed tactics by police and city authorities in impounding some of their vehicles. 

The taxis’ national union has said its members aren’t instigating the violence and others are using the strike as an excuse to launch their own protests. 

A community safety officer was killed Friday night, with city authorities also linking that officer’s death to the protests. Vehicles have been set alight in numerous areas around the outskirts of Cape Town, where large, impoverished townships are often the scene of violent protests. One of the city’s depots was firebombed over the weekend, authorities said. 

Cape Town is viewed as one of the most beautiful cities in the world and is South Africa’s tourist highlight, with its majestic Table Mountain and picturesque Atlantic seaboard. 

But the areas on the city’s outskirts have some of the highest homicide rates in the country and residents say they have been neglected for years and are now deeply troubled by violence and poverty. 

At least 35 people were arrested in the protests Monday that occurred in several areas, city authorities said. 

Four city buses, four private vehicles and two trucks were set on fire, while police officers reported being shot at while trying to move minibus taxis that caused another blockade on Cape Town’s main highway, said JP Smith, the member of the mayoral committee in charge of safety and security. He also said there was another shooting at a railway station but gave no detail on any casualties. 

“There have also been clear attempts to target city staff and infrastructure,” Smith said. 

Police have been deployed and are on high alert on a 30-kilometer (18-mile) stretch of highway from the edges of the city and out past the airport.  
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Kenyan victims of the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombing in Nairobi on Monday renewed calls for compensation from Washington as the East African nation marked 25 years since its deadliest terror attack. 

A powerful blast hit the U.S. Embassy in downtown Nairobi on Aug. 7, 1998, killing 213 people and injuring over 5,000 — most of them pedestrians or office workers in the adjacent buildings.

Minutes later, another explosion rocked the U.S. mission in Dar es Salaam, in neighboring Tanzania. 

The twin bombings, claimed by al-Qaida, killed a total of 224 people and went on to shape how a generation thinks about personal security.

The attack “still feels fresh” a quarter century later, said Anisa Mwilu, who lost her husband in the blast. 

“What we can ask is for compensation,” she said, to applause from several hundred people gathered a memorial park in the Kenyan capital for a remembrance ceremony for those killed. 

Caroline Muthoka, a member of a victims’ group, urged the U.S. Congress to approve legislation to cover medical expenses and education costs for survivors and their families. 

Muthoka described the failure of the U.S. government to compensate victims as an “injustice.” 

‘My back was on fire’

Redempta Kadenge Amisi, who was in a building flattened by the explosion, said she needed financial assistance to cover the costs of her twice-daily medication. 

“The three people I was with were killed instantly. I didn’t realize it, but my back was on fire,” she said of injuries that hospitalized her for over a month. “Since the attack, I haven’t received anything … but I still hope to get some.”

Both Kenyan and U.S. officials attended the ceremony, where the names of all the victims were read aloud and candles were lit in memory. 

The 1998 attack thrust al-Qaida onto the global stage and was the first in a series of bloody assaults in the East African nation. 

Since the October 2011 deployment of the Kenyan military in Somalia to fight the al-Qaida affiliate al-Shabab, there has been an upsurge in revenge attacks over the border.

In September 2013, al-Shabab gunmen stormed Nairobi’s Westgate mall, killing at least 67 people. 

Another al-Shabab attack in April 2015 at a university in the eastern Kenyan city of Garissa left 148 people dead.

In January 2019, the group laid siege to a hotel complex in Nairobi, killing 21 people. 
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Angola’s police have allegedly killed over a dozen activists since January, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Monday, urging government to swiftly probe reports of abuse and rights violations.

The country’s law enforcement authorities have also been accused of the arbitrary arrests and detention of hundreds, the NGO said in a statement.

Angolan law enforcement authorities including police, state security and intelligence services “have been implicated in unlawful killings of at least 15 people,” HRW said.

Political activists, artists and protest organizers were the main targets of the “alleged rights violations,” which HRW has condemned.

“Angolan authorities should urgently act to end abusive police policies and practices and ensure that there is justice for victims and their family members,” Zenaida Machado, senior Africa researcher at HRW said in the statement.

Although the government has attempted to improve law enforcement, criminal prosecutions against police officers who commit these violations remain rare, HRW said.

The arrests are more frequent in the oil rich northern province of Cabinda, close to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In the last six months, HRW has interviewed 32 people across the country including victims and their relatives, witnesses and security sources.

In one instance men who identified as criminal investigation service members held a group of young men in custody “whose bodies were found three days later at a hospital morgue.”

A friend of the victims, who were known for participating in anti-government protests, said that police had been monitoring the group.

Angola’s ruling party, the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), have denied HRW’s claims.

“Investigations are already underway,” party spokesman Rui Falcao told AFP.

“However, we find it strange that those calling for the necessary investigations already have conclusions and are passing judgement,” Falcao said.

According to the HRW the country’s leading opposition, UNITA, said it had documented over 130 cases of people being killed by security forces during protests since 2017.

On Saturday, thousands of people called for Angola’s President Joao Lourenco to step down during a rally in the capital organized by UNITA to commemorate its late leader.

The oil-rich southern African nation has experienced a wave of protests since the government cut subsidies for petrol in June.
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Hundreds of volunteers are fighting illiteracy in the province of Manica, in Mozambique. They are creating reading camps that teach children to read in Portuguese. Andre Baptista reports, in this story narrated by Barbara Santos.
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Torrential rains have destroyed more than 450 homes in Sudan’s north, state media reported Monday, validating concerns voiced by aid groups that the wet season would compound the war-torn country’s woes.

Changing weather patterns saw Sudan’s Northern State buffeted with heavy rain, causing damage to at least 464 houses, state-run SUNA news agency said.

It described the vast region bordering Egypt and Libya as “a desert area that rarely received rain in the past, but has been witnessing devastating rains for the past five years.”

The tragedy comes nearly four months into a brutal war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that has decimated infrastructure and plunged millions into hunger.

Medics and aid groups have for months warned that Sudan’s rainy season, which began in June, could spell disaster for millions more — increasing the risk of malnutrition, vector-borne diseases and displacement across the country.  

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), outbreaks of cholera and measles have already been reported in parts of the country that have been nearly impossible for relief missions to access.

More than 80 percent of Sudan’s hospitals are no longer in service, the WHO said, while the few health facilities that remain often come under fire and struggle to provide care.

The conflict, which erupted in the capital Khartoum on April 15, has displaced more than three million people internally with many in urgent need of aid, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Nearly a million others have fled across borders seeking safety, it said.

Aid groups repeatedly complain of security challenges, bureaucratic hurdles and targeted attacks that prevent them from delivering much-needed assistance. 

Again on Monday, Khartoum’s densely populated neighborhoods were pummeled by rockets and heavy artillery fire, witnesses told AFP.

The fighting between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, has killed more than 3,900 people, according to a conservative estimate by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. 
…

Niger closed its airspace on Sunday until further notice, citing the threat of military intervention from the West African regional bloc after coup leaders rejected a deadline to reinstate the country’s ousted president.

Earlier, thousands of junta supporters flocked to a stadium in Niamey, the capital, cheering the decision not to cave in to external pressure to stand down by Sunday following the July 26 power grab.

The coup, the seventh in West and Central Africa in three years, has rocked the Sahel region, one of the poorest in the world. Given its uranium and oil riches and its pivotal role in a war with Islamist militants, Niger holds importance for the U.S., Europe, China and Russia.

Defense chiefs of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have agreed a possible military action plan, including when and where to strike, if the detained president, Mohamed Bazoum, is not released and reinstated by the deadline.

“In the face of the threat of intervention that is becoming more apparent … Nigerian airspace is closed effective from today,” a junta representative said in a statement on national television on Sunday evening.

He said there had been a predeployment of forces in two Central African countries in preparation for an intervention but did not give details.

ECOWAS did not respond to a request for comment on what its next steps would be, or when exactly on Sunday its deadline expires. A spokesman earlier said it would issue a statement at the end of the day.

Blasting military tunes and tooting vuvuzela horns, over 100 junta supporters this weekend set up a picket near an air base in Niamey — part of a citizen movement to offer nonviolent resistance in support of the junta if needed.

As organizers led chants of “Vive Niger,” much of the emotion appeared directed against ECOWAS as well as former colonial power France, which said on Saturday it would support regional efforts to overturn the coup, without specifying if that included military assistance.

“The Nigerien people have understood that these imperialists want to bring about our demise. And God willing, they will be the ones to suffer for it,” said pensioner Amadou Adamou.

Niger last week revoked military cooperation agreements with France, which has between 1,000 and 1,500 troops in the country.

Sunday’s television broadcasts included a roundtable debate on encouraging solidarity in the face of ECOWAS sanctions, which have led to power cuts and soaring food prices.

The bloc’s military threat has triggered fears of further conflict in a region already battling the deadly Islamist insurgency that has killed thousands and forced millions to flee.

Any military intervention could be complicated by a promise from juntas in neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso to come to Niger’s defense if needed.

Bazoum’s prime minister, Ouhoumoudou Mahamadou, said on Saturday in Paris that the ousted regime still believed a last-minute agreement was possible.

On Sunday, Italy said it had reduced its troop numbers in Niger to make room in its military base for Italian civilians who may need protection if security deteriorates.
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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.”
…

Nigeria’s unreliable power grid is not only slowing down the country’s economic growth, but health workers say it can lead to unwanted hospital shutdowns at night. But one startup is giving hospitals hope. Alhassan Bala has this report, narrated by Haruna Shehu.
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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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Juan Branco, a French lawyer for Senegalese opposition politician Ousmane Sonko, is in custody in Dakar on terrorism, conspiracy and public order charges, among others, his lawyer told Reuters on Sunday.

He was arrested in Mauritania and extradited to Senegal on Saturday, his lawyer said. Branco is part of the team defending Sonko, who was detained in late July.

Sonko was charged with plotting an insurrection, criminal conspiracy and other offenses, two months after his trial for rape sparked deadly riots across Senegal.

Senegalese authorities issued an arrest warrant for Branco last month after he made a surprise appearance at a news conference by Sonko’s legal team in Dakar in late July, according to French newspaper Le Monde. He then went to Mauritania.

“Juan Branco is for now in the hands of an elite police unit,” Senegalese Interior Minister Antoine Felix Abdoulaye Diome said on Sunday.

“These legal proceedings are meant to silence a lawyer,” Branco’s lawyer Robin Binsard told Reuters.

Bamba Cisse, a member of Sonko’s legal team, told Reuters that all they were asking was for his rights to be protected.
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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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Editor’s note: U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee gave an interview to VOA Zimbabwe Service’s Blessing Zulu on Thursday.

As Zimbabwe prepares to host general elections scheduled for Aug. 23, a top U.S. official said Thursday that what is happening on the ground suggests that a free and fair election in the southern African nation is in doubt because of laws limiting civic space.  Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee said in an interview with VOA Zimbabwe Service’s Blessing Zulu that opposition political parties and citizens are being harassed and prevented from organizing and campaigning freely. Phee said the U.S. has conveyed its concerns in discussions with President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration and said that the U.S. will be sending observers to monitor the election. These highlights are excerpts from the conversation and have been edited for brevity and clarity.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee: I would like to recall that the President of Zimbabwe, President [Emmerson] Mnangagwa, has said repeatedly that he wants his country to hold free and fair elections, and we believe that would be the best path to promote peace and prosperity in Zimbabwe. Unfortunately, we have seen a fact pattern over recent months that suggests that a free and fair election is in doubt, and I can give you some examples of why we are concerned about that possibility.

VOA Blessing Zulu: If you may highlight your concerns.

MP: Well, as you know, last month’s new legislation, called the Patriotic Act, was adopted, and in fact, that legislation imposes restrictions on basic political freedoms agreed in Zimbabwe’s constitution and African Union protocols and in U.N. protocols. Those include freedom of assembly that allows citizens and political parties to meet and prepare to engage in an election process. It also includes restrictions on speech and expression, both by citizens, political parties and journalists. So, those are the types of actions that concern us. We’ve also seen opposition political parties and citizens actively harassed and prevented from exercising their political freedoms, that should be guaranteed by those regimes that I’ve described, the regimes under the Zimbabwean constitution and as expressed by the African Union and the United Nations. So, that’s why we’re concerned that the election won’t achieve the standard highlighted by the president.

VOA: But talking to officials in Harare, they are saying that the U.S. actually has a similar law that penalizes those who commit acts that can be deemed to be treasonous to the state.

MP: I don’t think that’s a fair comparison. We do have legislation that shares the same name, but the content of the law is very different, and I think they may be referring to a different law. In the United States, we take very seriously the freedoms of assembly, the freedoms of expression. We have had our own challenges, as you have seen in recent years in terms of conducting our elections. But we have institutions that are, for example, primarily our judiciary as well as congressional investigative action to check on our own election activities. Because as [U.S.] President [Joe] Biden has said, he believes that democracy is the best form of government to unlock the potential of every human being to treat all equal before the law and to pave the way for stability that allows economic development.

VOA: But is there any communication about these concerns between Harare and Washington?

MP: Yes, we have conveyed those concerns in our discussions with the government. We’ve also talked about them publicly. I would say we have welcomed the invitation of the government for observers to the election. We will be having an observer team from our embassy in Harare and as well it’s my understanding that there’ll be several. International observers, for example the Carter Center from the United States, as well as from the European Union and the African Union. So we hope that those observers are able to conduct their traditional duties to ensure that on the day of the election voters are able to reach the polls freely, they’re not harassed and that the electoral process is conducted in a way that reflects the actual vote.

VOA: Why is it important for Harare to have free and fair elections that are accepted by Zimbabweans and the international community?

MP: Well, again, first a free and fair election is what is expressed in the constitution of Zimbabwe and what has been called for by the president. In our experience in the United States and in our assessment of global experience, the best path for peace and prosperity is through a democratic system that respects all communities in a country, regardless of ethnicity, regardless of religion, regardless of any other category. That everyone is treated equal and allowed to participate freely in defining the future of their country. When you have political stability that results from a system such as I’ve described, then you have an opportunity to have good economic growth. We know and appreciate and respect Zimbabwe’s complicated political history in the 20th century, but we also know that Zimbabwe has a rich history of success, enormous human talent, enormous natural resources. Zimbabwe has the potential to be a great leader in southern Africa and indeed to be a great participant in global conversation. So, that’s what we would like to see for the people and country of Zimbabwe.

VOA: And let’s turn to political violence. An opposition Citizens Coalition for Change supporter was killed in Harare, allegedly by ruling ZANU-PF supporters. What is your take on the issue of political violence?

MP: Well, obviously, I oppose political violence, both in my own country and in Zimbabwe and in any other country. You cannot have a functioning, healthy democracy if people are intimidated by violence. I know we’ve seen examples earlier this year of political parties and citizens exercising their democratic rights being detained, being beaten up by police forces. The example you’ve just described of vigilante forces by the political party, all of that is disturbing and should be unacceptable for a government and a society committed to a true, free and fair election.

VOA: But the ruling party is saying that Mr. Mnangagwa has been calling for peace and nonviolence. Is it not enough?

MP: Well, I think the example you just cited and the examples I have cited suggest that his rhetoric is not yet being translated into action and we would urge the government to follow the rhetoric outlined by the president. 
…

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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Niger’s ousted prime minister on Saturday clung to the dimming hope that last week’s military coup could be overturned by diplomacy, he told Reuters on the eve of a deadline set by regional powers to reinstate the elected government.

Niger’s military takeover, the seventh in West and Central Africa in three years, has rocked the western Sahel region, one of the poorest in the world, which has strategic significance to global powers.

Defense chiefs from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have drawn up a plan for military action if the coup leaders do not reinstate elected President Mohamed Bazoum, who is being held by the military at his residence in Niamey, by Sunday.

Their pledge has raised the specter of further conflict in a region that is battling a deadly Islamist insurgency that has killed thousands and forced millions to flee.

Algeria, Niger’s neighbor to the north, said Saturday that it is categorically against any military intervention in Niger.

“A military intervention could ignite the whole Sahel region and Algeria will not use force with its neighbors,” President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said in an interview with local media.

As the deadline loomed, Bazoum’s Prime Minister Ouhoumoudou Mahamadou believed a last-minute intervention was possible, he said in an interview in Paris.

“We are still hopeful,” said Mahamadou, who was in Rome when the coup occurred. “We expect President Bazoum to be released, reinstated, and all institutions that were allegedly dissolved to be restored in their entirety.”

France said on Saturday it will support efforts to overturn the coup, without specifying whether its backing would entail military assistance for an ECOWAS intervention.

But 59-year-old coup leader General Abdourahamane Tchiani, who received some of his military training in France, said the junta will not back down.

Meanwhile ECOWAS’ options, which range from a ground invasion to aiding a homegrown countercoup, all risk stoking insecurity.

Mahamadou said that he was in contact with Bazoum but questioned how the ousted president was being treated.

“He is doing well as a political prisoner, sequestered, without water, without electricity, can do,” he said, adding that ECOWAS intervention could be the only way to change that.

“The security of the president is a matter that is in the hands of ECOWAS,” he said.

ECOWAS has taken a tough stance on the takeover. Given its uranium and oil riches and pivotal role in the war against militants, Niger holds importance for the U.S., China, Europe and Russia.

Under the intervention plan, the decision of when and where to strike will be made by heads of state, said Abdel-Fatau Musah, ECOWAS commissioner for political affairs, peace and security.

He did not give a timeline for the intervention or say what the plan would entail.

“All the elements that will go into any eventual intervention have been worked out here, including the resources needed, the how and when we are going deploy the force,” he said at the close of a three-day meeting in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, on Friday.

ECOWAS may face resistance. Niger’s neighbors Mali and Burkina Faso, where military juntas have also seized power in recent years, said they would support Niger in the event of military intervention.

Mahamadou shrugged off the threat from Niger’s neighbors, whose underequipped armies are struggling to contain violent Islamist insurgencies of their own.

“To go to Niger, they have to cross the jihadist groups that they have not succeeded in fighting. So for us, it’s an empty threat,” he said.  
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