France prepared to evacuate French and European nationals from Niger on Tuesday, after a military coup there was supported by three other West African nations ruled by mutinous soldiers.
The French Foreign Ministry in Paris cited recent violence that targeted the French Embassy in Niamey, the capital, as one of the reasons for the decision.
The closure of Niger’s airspace also “leaves our compatriots unable to leave the country by their own means,” the ministry said.
The evacuation comes amid a deepening crisis sparked by the coup last week against Niger’s democratically elected president, Mohamed Bazoum. It was starting Tuesday for French and European citizens who wish to leave, the French ministry said in a statement. It gave no other details.
The West African regional body known as ECOWAS announced travel and economic sanctions against Niger on Sunday and said it would use force if the coup leaders don’t reinstate Bazoum within one week. Bazoum’s government was one of the West’s last democratic partners against West African extremists.
In a joint statement, the military governments of Mali and Burkina Faso said that “any military intervention against Niger will be considered as a declaration of war against Burkina Faso and Mali.”
Col. Abdoulaye Maiga, Mali’s state minister for territorial administration and decentralisation, read the statement on Malian state TV Monday evening. The two countries also denounced the ECOWAS economic sanctions as “illegal, illegitimate and inhumane” and refused to apply them.
ECOWAS suspended all commercial and financial transactions between its member states and Niger, as well as freezing Nigerien assets held in regional central banks.
Niger relies heavily on foreign aid, and sanctions could further impoverish its more than 25 million people.
