Nimaey: West African military leaders will gather on Thursday in Ghana to plan a potential intervention to overthrow the coup in Niger.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has made the decision to establish a "standby force to restore constitutional order" in Niger after becoming concerned about a string of coups in the area.
The top brass will meet on Thursday and Friday in the wake of new attacks by insurgents that left at least 17 soldiers dead in an ambush.
The Tillaberi region near Burkina Faso saw an army detachment "the victim of a terrorist ambush near the town of Koutougou" on Tuesday, according to the defence ministry of Niger.
The most soldiers lost since the July 26 coup were twenty more, six of them critically.
The Sahel region of Africa has been plagued by armed insurgencies for more than ten years. They began in northern Mali in 2012 and spread to nearby Niger and Burkina Faso in 2015. Attacks by rebels connected to Al-Qaeda and the Daesh organisation frequently take place in the "three borders" region separating the two nations.
Thousands of soldiers, police officers, and civilians have died as a result of the unrest in the area, and millions of people have been forced to leave their homes. Since 2020, anger over the bloodshed has been the driving force behind military takeovers in all three nations. Mohamed Bazoum, the elected president of Niger, was overthrown on July 26.
The generals who have Bazoum in custody claimed that "the deteriorating security situation" was what ultimately led to the coup.
Analysts claim that a military or political intervention to remove the coup's leaders would be risky, and the bloc has stated that it would prefer a diplomatic resolution.
In a statement released on Tuesday, ECOWAS "strongly condemned" the most recent attack and called on the military to "restore constitutional order in Niger so that it can concentrate on security, which has been weakened since the attempted coup d'état."
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Under the auspices of the African Union, discussions between representatives of ECOWAS and Niger have been taking place this week in Addis Abeba.
The United States announced on Wednesday that a new ambassador would soon travel to Niger to assist in directing diplomatic efforts to put an end to the coup.
Despite being ordered to leave the embassy, Kathleen FitzGibbon, a career diplomat with extensive experience in Africa, will still go to Niamey.
Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, the civilian prime minister of Niger appointed by the military, paid an unannounced visit to neighbouring Chad on Tuesday. Chad is a significant country in the unstable Sahel but is not a member of ECOWAS.
He went to see President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno and delivered what he called a message of "good neighbourliness and good fraternity" from the ruler of Niger.
"We discussed the ins and outs and reiterated our availability to remain open and talk with all parties, but insist on our country's independence," Zeine said. "We are in a process of transition.
The election of Bazoum in 2021 marked a turning point in Niger's history because it marked the nation's first peaceful transfer of power since gaining independence from France in 1960.
Before being overthrown in the fifth military coup in the country, he had survived two previous coup attempts.
A number of trade and financial sanctions have been implemented by ECOWAS, and aid programmes from France, Germany, and the United States have been suspended.
The measures are being implemented in one of the world's poorest nations, which consistently comes in last on the UN's Human Development Index.
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The United Nations called for border closures and humanitarian exceptions to sanctions on Wednesday, stating that the crisis could significantly worsen the country's already severe food insecurity.
In addition, Niger is dealing with a militant insurgency in its southeast brought on by militants entering from Nigeria, the origin of a Boko Haram-led campaign that began in 2010.
