Burkina Faso and Mali warned against military intervention in Niger to restore President Bazoum, considering it a declaration of war. France plans to evacuate its nationals from Niger amid deteriorating security and anti-French protests following the coup.
Junta-led Burkina Faso and Mali warned Monday that any military intervention in Niger to restore deposed President Mohamed Bazoum would be considered a “declaration of war against their two countries.
The warning from Niger’s military-ruled neighbors came a day after West African leaders, supported by their Western partners, threatened to use “force” to reinstate the democratically elected Bazoum and slapped financial sanctions on the putschists.
In a joint statement, the governments of Burkina Faso and Mali warned that the “disastrous consequences of a military intervention in Niger… could destabilize the entire region.”
The two also said they “refuse to apply” the “illegal, illegitimate, and inhumane sanctions against the people and authorities of Niger.”
At an emergency summit on Sunday, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) demanded that Bazoum be reinstated within a week, failing which it would take “all measures” to restore constitutional order.
The bloc also slapped financial sanctions on the junta leaders and the country, freezing “all commercial and financial transactions” between member states and Niger, one of the world’s poorest nations, which often ranks last on the UN’s Human Development Index.
Pressure to push the perpetrators of the July 26 coup to quickly restore constitutional order is building from Western and African partners in Niger, a country considered essential in the fight against jihadist groups that have ravaged parts of the Sahel region for years.
Niger’s junta on Monday accused France of seeking to “intervene militarily” to reinstate Bazoum, which French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna denied.
Bazoum is one of a dwindling group of elected presidents and pro-Western leaders in the Sahel, where since 2020 a jihadist insurgency has also triggered coups in Mali and Burkina Faso.
France prepared to evacuate its citizens from Niger on Tuesday, as tensions escalated after the coup last week that toppled one of the last pro-Western leaders in Africa’s jihadist-plagued Sahel region.
West African leaders, supported by their Western partners, threatened to use force to reinstate the democratically elected Bazoum and slapped financial sanctions on the putschists.
Niger became the third Sahel country in less than three years, following neighbors Mali and Burkina Faso, to be shaken by a military coup when President Mohamed Bazoum was toppled last week by elite troops from his own Presidential Guard.
Miroslava Salazar with AFP
