The military junta in Niger has reopened the West African
country’s airspace again more than one month after seizing power in a coup.
Niger’s airspace is accessible for both civil and commercial
aircraft with immediate effect, the military said on Monday.
The junta had closed the country’s airspace a few days after
ousting the democratically elected president in a putsch on July 26, among
other things, to prevent the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)
from intervening.
ECOWAS has threatened the use of force to restore
constitutional order if Niger’s ousted president Mohamed Bazoum, now under
house arrest, is not reinstated.
So far this has not happened; instead, the commander of the
elite Presidential Guard responsible for the coup, General Abdourahamane
Tchiani, appointed himself the new ruler and created a caretaker government
which is to rule “no longer than three years.”
Niger, a Sahel country with around 26 million people and one
of the poorest populations in the world, was one of the last democratic
partners of the United States and Europe in the so-called “coup belt”
surrounding it.
In Brussels, the EU is busy preparing sanctions against
Niger’s putischists targeting leading junta figures, according to diplomats.
Organisations supporting the new military rulers could also
be subject to EU sanctions.
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