At the bus station in Agadez, a town in northern Niger that serves as a gateway to the Sahara, a dozen men – their faces masked by turbans and sunglasses – clambered onto the back of a battered pickup truck headed across the desert to Libya. Several men with legs dangling over the side of the vehicle shouted “Italy, Italy!”, gripping short wooden poles that they hope will prevent them […]
Niger’s military has accused France of gathering forces and equipment in several West African countries with a view to launch a “military intervention” against Niamey. Colonel Amadou Abdramane, a spokesman for Niger’s coup leaders, made the claim on national television late on Saturday. He said France was continuing to deploy its forces in member countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) as “part of preparations for an […]
Scenes of crowds, jostling and queuing at Niamey’s Diori Hamani International Airport in Niger are reminiscent of similar scenes that occurred in Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport in Afghanistan, two years ago. Only short-sighted policy makers did not see the Kabul storm coming, until it engulfed the whole city on 15 August 2021, as Taliban fighters appeared on the streets, effectively ending the American-led Western occupation of the country. The […]
France has issued a warning against travelling to Niger after six French aid workers were among eight people killed by suspected fighters at the weekend. The foreign ministry said on its website on Wednesday people were "strongly advised" not to travel anywhere in the country, excluding the capital, Niamey, for which travel was "not advised unless for compelling reasons". The new advice means that the southern part of Niger, roughly […]
Unprecedented mediation efforts by five West African presidents in Mali have ended without a deal on how to resolve the country's deepening political crisis. The leaders of Ghana, Ivory Coast, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal on Thursday headed to Bamako to meet Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and key figures of an opposition protest movement that has been demanding for weeks his resignation. After the daylong talks aimed at breaking the deadlock, Nigerien […]
The UN refugee agency resumed evacuations of migrants from Libya on Tuesday, flying 132 mostly Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers to Niger for resettlement in third countries. UNHCR previously evacuated about 1,000 refugees and asylum seekers to Niger, but the process had been suspended because of delays in resettling them in Western countries. Several hundred refugees and asylum seekers have been resettled directly from Libya, but numbers have been limited […]
A group of 25 refugees have been evacuated from Libya to Niger to have resettlement claims processed, in the first operation of its kind from the North African country, the United Nations said on Sunday. The move is part of efforts to provide protection for refugees and other vulnerable migrants who travel to Libya, often intending to attempt the dangerous sea crossing to Italy. Many are trapped in smuggling networks […]
Suspected Boko Haram fighters have killed at least nine people and abducted as many as 40 others in south-east Niger, according to local officials. The gunmen late on Sunday attacked a village in Kablewa town near the southeastern Niger city of Diffa, close to the border with Nigeria, authorities said on Monday. They killed eight young people and an elderly man, Kablewa Mayor Abari Elh Daouda told the DPA news […]
Militants ambushed an army patrol in Niger on Thursday, killing 15 soldiers and wounding 19, the Defense Ministry said, occurring in an area near the border with Mali where militants have been seeking to expand their reach. "A search operation is underway to neutralize the terrorists," the ministry statement said of the attack just outside the town of Tiloa. Militants and allied criminal gangs have long exploited the areas around […]
VOC became the first Muslim radio station in South Africa when a special events license was granted to the station in Ramadan/January 1995. Subsequent temporary broadcast licenses were granted, permitting the station to broadcast for 24 hours.
