NIAMEY: A delegation from West Africa’s ECOWAS bloc arrived in Niger and met ousted president Mohamed Bazoum on Saturday, as they sought a peaceful rather than military solution to the country’s woes after army officers seized power in a coup.
Bazoum was “in good spirits,” a source close to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) told AFP — though he remains under detention and his electricity was still cut off.
He has been held with his family at the president’s official residence since the coup, with growing international concern over his conditions in detention.
The ECOWAS delegation was also in Niger for talks with the officers who seized power from Bazoum on July 26.
Led by former Nigerian leader Abdulsalami Abubakar the West African representatives met with some of the senior officers who seized power, said the source, without saying if they included coup leader General Abdourahamane Tiani.
A previous ECOWAS delegation led by Abubakar earlier this month had tried and failed to meet him, or Bazoum.
Saturday’s visit came after ECOWAS military chiefs announced they were ready to intervene to reinstate the ousted president.
ECOWAS has agreed to activate a “standby force” as a last resort to restore democracy in Niger.
But it says it favors dialogue to defuse the crisis.
Meanwhile, Niger’s new military ruler said Saturday a transition of power would not go beyond three years, and warned that any attack on the country would not be easy for those involved.
“Our ambition is not to confiscate power,” General Abdourahamane Tiani said in a televised address. Any transition of power “would not go beyond three years,” he said.
But he added: “If an attack were to be undertaken against us, it will not be the walk in the park some people seem to think.”
ECOWAS chair and Nigerian President Bola Tinubu on Friday threatened Niamey with “grave consequences” if the new regime allows Bazoum’s health to worsen, an EU official said.
Niger’s military-appointed prime minister, Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, told The New York Times that Bazoum would not be harmed.
“Nothing will happen to him, because we don’t have a tradition of violence in Niger,” the most senior civilian in the new regime told the daily.
Niger’s new rulers have so far shown little flexibility and warned against an “illegal aggression.”
Thousands of volunteers turned out in central Niamey on Saturday answering a call to register as civilian auxiliaries who could be mobilized to support the army.
ECOWAS defense chiefs had met this week in the Ghanaian capital Accra to fine-tune details of a potential military operation to restore Bazoum if ongoing negotiations with coup leaders fail.
“We are ready to go any time the order is given,” Abdel-Fatau Musah, an ECOWAS commissioner for political affairs and security, said on Friday after the military chiefs’ meeting.
“The D-Day is also decided.”
ECOWAS leaders say they have to act after Niger became the fourth West African nation since 2020 to suffer a coup, following Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso.
The Sahel region is struggling with growing jihadist insurgencies linked to Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group. Frustration over the violence has in part prompted the military takeovers.
ECOWAS troops have intervened in other emergencies since 1990, including civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Ivory Coast, Benin and Nigeria are expected to contribute troops to a Niger mission.
But details of any Niger operation have not been released and analysts say intervention would be politically and militarily risky, especially for regional player Nigeria.
Nigeria is already struggling to contain violence from several armed groups at home, and leaders in the country’s north have warned about spillover from Niger across the border if there is an intervention.
The coup leaders have defiantly threatened to charge Bazoum with treason. But they have also said they are open to talks.
The military-ruled governments in neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso have also said an intervention in Niger would be seen as a declaration of war against them.
In the hours following the coup, France, which fields 1,500 troops in Niger, was asked to back a potential armed move to restore Bazoum to office, sources close to the affair told AFP, confirming a report in Le Monde daily.
“But the loyalists changed sides and joined the putschists. So the conditions were not right to meet the request for support,” the source said.
ECOWAS has already applied trade and financial sanctions on Niger, while France, Germany and the United States have suspended aid programs.
Also on Saturday, the US, a major partner of Niger in the fight against extremists, said that a new ambassador had been installed in Niamey.
Kathleen FitzGibbon, a career diplomat with extensive experience in Africa, will not however officially present her letter of assignment to the new authorities in place, as Washington does not recognize them.
ECOWAS delegation meets ousted president in coup-hit Niger, general proposes transition period
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ECOWAS delegation meets ousted president in coup-hit Niger, general proposes transition period
- Saturday’s visit came after ECOWAS military chiefs announced they were ready to intervene to reinstate the ousted president
Pakistan locks down capital ahead of a planned rally by Imran Khan supporters
- Interior Ministry is considering a suspension of mobile phone services in parts of Pakistan in the coming days
- Pakistan has banned gatherings of five or more people in Islamabad for two months to deter Khan’s supporters
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is sealing off its capital, Islamabad, ahead of a planned rally by supporters of imprisoned former premier Imran Khan.
It’s the second time in as many months that authorities have imposed such measures to thwart tens of thousands of people from gathering in the city to demand Khan’s release.
The latest lockdown coincides with the visit of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who arrives in Islamabad on Monday.
Local media reported that the Interior Ministry is considering a suspension of mobile phone services in parts of Pakistan in the coming days. On Friday, the National Highways and Motorway Police announced that key routes would close for maintenance.
It advised people to avoid unnecessary travel and said the decision was taken following intelligence reports that “angry protesters” are planning to create a law and order situation and damage public and private property on Sunday, the day of the planned rally.
“There are reports that protesters are coming with sticks and slingshots,” the statement added.
Multicolored shipping containers, a familiar sight to people living and working in Islamabad, reappeared on key roads Saturday to throttle traffic.
Pakistan has already banned gatherings of five or more people in Islamabad for two months to deter Khan’s supporters and activists from his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, or PTI.
Khan has been in prison for more than a year in connection and has over 150 criminal cases against him. But he remains popular and the PTI says the cases are politically motivated.
A three-day shutdown was imposed in Islamabad for a security summit last month.
Indian man awakes on funeral pyre
- Doctors sent Rohitash Kumar, 25, to mortuary instead of conducting postmortem after he fell ill
- Kumar was rushed to hospital on Friday for treatment but was confirmed dead later
JAIPUR: An Indian man awoke on a funeral pyre moments before it was to be set on fire after a doctor skipped a postmortem, medical officials said Saturday.
Rohitash Kumar, 25, who had speaking and hearing difficulties, had fallen sick and was taken to a hospital in Jhunjhunu in the western state of Rajasthan on Thursday.
Indian media reported he had had an epileptic seizure, and a doctor declared him dead on arrival at the hospital.
But instead of the required postmortem to ascertain the cause of death, doctors sent him to the mortuary, and then to be burned according to Hindu rites.
D. Singh, chief medical officer of the hospital, told AFP that a doctor had “prepared the postmortem report without actually doing the postmortem, and the body was then sent for cremation.”
Singh said that “shortly before the pyre was to be lit, Rohitash’s body started movements,” adding that “he was alive and was breathing.”
Kumar was rushed to hospital for a second time, but was confirmed dead on Friday during treatment.
Authorities have suspended the services of three doctors and the police have launched an investigation.
NATO chief discusses ‘global security’ with Trump
- NATO allies say keeping Kyiv in the fight against Moscow is key to both European and American security
Brussels: NATO chief Mark Rutte held talks with US President-elect Donald Trump in Florida on the “global security issues facing the alliance,” a spokeswoman said Saturday.
The meeting took place on Friday in Palm Beach, NATO’s Farah Dakhlallah said in a statement.
In his first term Trump aggressively pushed Europe to step up defense spending and questioned the fairness of the NATO transatlantic alliance.
The former Dutch prime minister had said he wanted to meet Trump two days after Trump was elected on November 5, and discuss the threat of increasingly warming ties between North Korea and Russia.
Trump’s thumping victory to return to the US presidency has set nerves jangling in Europe that he could pull the plug on vital Washington military aid for Ukraine.
NATO allies say keeping Kyiv in the fight against Moscow is key to both European and American security.
“What we see more and more is that North Korea, Iran, China and of course Russia are working together, working together against Ukraine,” Rutte said recently at a European leaders’ meeting in Budapest.
“At the same time, Russia has to pay for this, and one of the things they are doing is delivering technology to North Korea,” which he warned was threatening to the “mainland of the US (and) continental Europe.”
“I look forward to sitting down with Donald Trump to discuss how we can face these threats collectively,” Rutte said.
Indian man awakes on funeral pyre
JAIPUR, India: An Indian man awoke on a funeral pyre moments before it was to be set on fire after a doctor skipped a postmortem, medical officials said Saturday.
Rohitash Kumar, 25, who had speaking and hearing difficulties, had fallen sick and was taken to a hospital in Jhunjhunu in the western state of Rajasthan on Thursday.
Indian media reported he had had an epileptic seizure, and a doctor declared him dead on arrival at the hospital.
But instead of the required postmortem to ascertain the cause of death, doctors sent him to the mortuary, and then to be burned according to Hindu rites.
D. Singh, chief medical officer of the hospital, told AFP that a doctor had “prepared the postmortem report without actually doing the postmortem, and the body was then sent for cremation.”
Singh said that “shortly before the pyre was to be lit, Rohitash’s body started movements,” adding that “he was alive and was breathing.”
Kumar was rushed to hospital for a second time, but was confirmed dead on Friday during treatment.
Authorities have suspended the services of three doctors and the police have launched an investigation.
Fighting between armed sectarian groups in restive northwestern Pakistan kills at least 33 people
- Senior police officer said Saturday armed men torched shops, houses and government property overnight
- Although the two groups generally live together peacefully, tensions remain, especially in Kurram
PESHAWAR: Fighting between armed Sunni and Shiite groups in northwestern Pakistan killed at least 33 people and injured 25 others, a senior police officer from the region said Saturday.
The overnight violence was the latest to rock Kurram, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and comes days after a deadly gun ambush killed 42 people.
Shiite Muslims make up about 15 percent of the 240 million people in Sunni-majority Pakistan, which has a history of sectarian animosity between the communities.
Although the two groups generally live together peacefully, tensions remain, especially in Kurram.
The senior police officer said armed men in Bagan and Bacha Kot torched shops, houses and government property.
Intense gunfire was ongoing between the Alizai and Bagan tribes in the Lower Kurram area.
“Educational institutions in Kurram are closed due to the severe tension. Both sides are targeting each other with heavy and automatic weapons,” said the officer, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Videos shared with The Associated Press showed a market engulfed by fire and orange flames piercing the night sky. Gunfire can also be heard.
The location of Thursday’s attack was also targeted by armed men, who marched on the area.
Survivors of the gun ambush said assailants emerged from a vehicle and sprayed buses and cars with bullets. Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack and police have not identified a motive.
Dozens of people from the district’s Sunni and Shiite communities have been killed since July, when a land dispute erupted in Kurram that later turned into general sectarian violence.
