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☆ What’s in Our Queue? Gyedu-Blay Ambolley and More
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-24 | by ( Elian Peltier | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

What’s in Our Queue? Gyedu-Blay Ambolley and MoreI’m The Times’s West Africa correspondent. I love diving into the cultural scenes of the countries I write about — and taking occasional breaks on my Nintendo Switch. Here are five things I’ve been reading, playing and listening to lately →

Persons: Ambolley, → Organizations: Nintendo Locations: Africa

☆ Junta Official in Niger Claims Captive President Will Not Be Harmed
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-18 | by ( Elian Peltier | More About Elian Peltier | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The top civilian official of the junta that seized power in the West African nation of Niger said in an interview on Friday that coup leaders had no intention of harming the deposed president or collaborating with the Kremlin-backed Wagner paramilitary group. The junta has been holding Niger’s president, Mohamed Bazoum, captive in his home since July 26, denying him water and electricity, and threatening to kill him if a group of West African countries were to follow through on a proposal to reverse the coup militarily. In an interview with The New York Times, Ali Lamine Zeine, who was named prime minister by the junta earlier this month, said of Mr. Bazoum, “Nothing will happen to him, because we don’t have a tradition of violence in Niger.” The pledge was at odds with the country’s history — a president was assassinated by soldiers in 1999.

Persons: Wagner, Mohamed Bazoum, Ali Lamine Zeine, Bazoum, — Organizations: Kremlin, The New York Times Locations: West African, Niger, West

When mutinous soldiers seized power in the West African nation of Burkina Faso early last year, the president of neighboring Niger struck a dismissive note. “This is nonsense,” President Mohamed Bazoum told two Western diplomats who sat in his office as news of the coup came through. How cynical was it, Mr. Bazoum remarked, that the soldiers responsible for securing Burkina Faso had overthrown the government in the name of restoring security. Now Mr. Bazoum faces the same fate. Mr. Bazoum’s Western and African allies are trying to negotiate his release, and West African army chiefs on Friday were set to finalize a possible military intervention in Niger.

Persons: Mohamed Bazoum, Bazoum, Burkina Faso, Bazoum’s Organizations: Burkina, West Locations: West African, Burkina Faso, Niger

The military takeover in Niger has upended years of Western counterterrorism efforts in West Africa and now poses wrenching new challenges for the Biden administration’s fight against Islamist militants on the continent. American-led efforts to degrade terrorist networks around the world have largely succeeded in longtime jihadist hot spots like Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. Not so in Africa, especially in the Sahel, the vast, semiarid region south of the Sahara where groups linked to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State are gaining ground at an alarming pace. Niger, an impoverished nation of 25 million people that is nearly twice the size of Texas, has recently been the exception to that trend. Niger has slowed, but not stopped, a wave of extremists pushing south to coastal states.

Persons: Biden, Mohamed Bazoum Organizations: Islamic, Nigerien Locations: Niger, West Africa, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Africa, Sahel, Al Qaeda, Texas

☆ Niger’s Junta Vows to Prosecute Deposed President for Treason
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-14 | by ( Elian Peltier | More About Elian Peltier | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The military junta that seized power in Niger last month said over the weekend that it would prosecute the deposed president for treason, even as an intermediary said coup leaders were open to talks with West African counties that had threatened to intervene militarily, the first sign of a thaw after nearly three weeks of rising tensions. Since mutinous soldiers detained President Mohamed Bazoum of Niger on July 26, they have kept him isolated in his private residence in Niamey, the capital, with his wife and one of their sons; dissolved his government; and, according to U.S. officials, vowed to kill him if West African countries intervened militarily. On Sunday, the junta member acting as a spokesman, Col. Amadou Abdramane, said that Mr. Bazoum would face charges of “high treason” and “undermining the internal and external security of Niger” after the democratically elected president spoke with foreign leaders and international organizations while in detention. The coup in Niger last month set off one of the most severe political crises in recent years in West Africa, following a series of military takeovers in a region already troubled by Islamist insurgencies, some of the world’s most extreme effects of climate change and widespread poverty.

Persons: Mohamed Bazoum, Amadou Abdramane, Bazoum, ”, insurgencies Organizations: West Locations: Niger, West African, Niamey, West Africa

☆ As West African Leaders Meet on Niger Crisis, Few Options Are on the Table
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-10 | by ( Elian Peltier | More About Elian Peltier | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

West African leaders gathered on Thursday for a critical summit to address the crisis in Niger, where the mutinous soldiers who seized power more than two weeks ago have shunned mediation efforts and ignored an ultimatum to relinquish power. Hopes for an end to the stalemate were already dim before the junta on Thursday replaced the cabinet of the ousted president, Mohamed Bazoum, with a new government made up of 21 officials led by Ali Lamine Zeine, an economist and former finance minister. The two highest-ranking officials after Mr. Zeine are both generals and coup leaders. As the military junta strengthened its grip on power, envoys from the Economic Community of West African States, the 15-nation regional bloc known as ECOWAS that had threatened military intervention if Mr. Bazoum was not reinstated, convened in Nigeria, but their options appeared to be limited. The deadline to return Mr. Bazoum to power passed on Sunday, with few consequences so far, and the prospect of a military intervention to remove the new government appeared unlikely, according to most observers.

Persons: Mohamed Bazoum, Ali Lamine Zeine, Zeine, Bazoum Organizations: Economic, West Locations: Niger, West African States, Nigeria

When President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of Nigeria took the helm of the West African regional bloc of countries last month, he thundered before a roomful of his presidential peers that he would show no tolerance for military coups in an area that had faced five in less than three years. “We will not allow coup after coup,” he said, drawing a round of applause. Now, the deadline has passed, Niger’s president — Mohamed Bazoum — is still held hostage in his residence and Mr. Tinubu is facing a backlash in his own country. Senators, religious leaders and civil society organizations in northern Nigeria oppose a war with a neighbor that they say would further destabilize both countries, whose militaries were already spread thin fighting off Islamist militants. Nigerian security forces are also combating kidnappers, extortion rings and oil thieves.

Persons: Bola Ahmed Tinubu, “, ”, Mr, Tinubu, — Mohamed Bazoum — Organizations: West African, Economic Locations: Nigeria, Niger, West African States, Nigerian

Stocking up on rice, fleeing the capital by bus or vowing to defend their new military leaders, many in Niger braced this weekend for a deadline imposed by a 15-member bloc of West African nations for the country’s junta to relinquish power. But that deadline to restore democracy or face military action expired on Sunday. But the ultimatum also rallied many Nigeriens behind their new military leaders. West African officials said that they would employ force only as a last resort, and most analysts said that a conflict appeared unlikely, at least in the near term. But ECOWAS military officials said that they did have a plan for an intervention, if needed.

Persons: Niger’s, insurgencies, Abdourahmane Tchiani Organizations: West, Economic Locations: Niger, West African States, Africa, Niamey

☆ A Shrinking Footprint in Africa for France, the Former Colonizer That Stayed
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-05 | by ( Elian Peltier | More About Elian Peltier | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The country’s president, a trusted ally of France, was taken hostage in the presidential palace by his own guards in late July. A colonel in uniform appeared late Thursday on state television and announced that the military was ending its cooperation with France. The coups have fanned the flames of popular anger against France, a former colonial power that critics say never really let go of its former possessions. Now, France has become a scapegoat of sorts in a region buckling under the forces of poverty, climate change and surging Islamist militancy. “France did not see this coup coming, so they have not learned from Mali or Burkina Faso,” said Mujtaba Rahman, the managing director for Europe at Eurasia Group, a consultancy.

Persons: “, ”, Mujtaba Rahman Organizations: Protesters, French Embassy, Eurasia Group Locations: France, French, West African, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, “ France, Europe

Two western African states said that they would join forces to defend Niger, where soldiers claimed to have seized power in a coup last week, if a major regional bloc carried through on a threat to intervene militarily unless the ousted president is returned to office. The joint statement late Monday by the two states, Mali and Burkina Faso, was a stinging rebuke to the regional bloc, the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS. On Sunday, the bloc vowed to take “all measures necessary,” including possible military action, to force the reinstatement of Niger’s president, Mohamed Bazoum. Mali and Burkina Faso, themselves ruled by military governments that took power in coups, said that any move against Niger would be considered a “declaration of war” against their own countries. It also raised the prospect that the crisis in Niger, where about 2,600 American and French troops are stationed, could spread into a wider regional conflict.

Persons: Mohamed Bazoum Organizations: Economic, West Locations: Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, West African States

☆ Head of Presidential Guard Claims Power in Niger Coup
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-28 | by ( Elian Peltier | More About Elian Peltier | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The commander of the presidential guard in Niger claimed the leadership of the West African country with a televised address on Friday, two days after his military unit detained the democratically elected president and threw into uncertainty the future of a key Western ally in the region. “We have decided to intervene and seize our responsibilities,” Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani, who goes by the first name Omar, said on state television, where he was identified onscreen as the president of the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Country. “We can’t continue with the same approaches.”Niger, a poor country rich in uranium, lies in the Sahel, the arid region south of the Sahara that has faced growing insecurity amid the worsening effects of climate change, political instability and armed insurgencies. The United States has 1,100 troops and two drone bases in Niger, and France, the former colonial power, more than 1,500 troops. The military takeover in Niger is the sixth in West Africa in less than three years, following in the steps of Burkina Faso, Guinea and Mali, and threatening to upend efforts in the region to fight Islamist insurgencies by groups affiliated with Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.

Persons: ”, Abdourahmane Tchiani, Omar, Al Qaeda Organizations: National Council, United, Al, Islamic Locations: Niger, West, ” Niger, Sahel, United States, France, West Africa, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Islamic State

Military officers in the West African nation of Niger ousted the country’s president on Wednesday, they said in an address on national television, throwing into uncertainty the future of one of the West’s few reliable partners in a region marred by coups and widespread insecurity. Army officials representing different branches of Niger’s military, which has received support from the United States and France, among others, said they had “put an end to the regime” of President Mohamed Bazoum of Niger, following a day of stalled negotiations where members of the presidential guard held him hostage in the presidential palace. The officers removed Mr. Bazoum “due to the deteriorating security situation and bad governance,” Col. Amadou Abdramane, an official of the Nigerien air force, said in a statement read on television. The statement also said the officers were closing the country’s borders.

Persons: Mohamed Bazoum, Bazoum, Col, Amadou Abdramane Organizations: Nigerien Locations: West African, Niger, United States, France

Soldiers from the presidential guard in the West African nation of Niger barricaded the president in his palace in an apparent mutiny on Wednesday, according to the president’s office and the regional bloc of neighboring states. The standoff raised fears of a coup in a region that has lately been jolted by many. Militant groups linked to both Al Qaeda and Islamic State operate there. Mr. Bazoum was elected in 2021 in Niger’s first peaceful, democratic transfer of power. He has been one of the West’s most reliable partners in a volatile region filled with aging presidents clinging to power and young military officers who have seized control by force.

Persons: Mohamed Bazoum, Al, Bazoum Organizations: Militant, Islamic Locations: West African, Niger, Niamey, Africa, France, Al Qaeda, Islamic State, Niger’s

A teacher in northern Nigeria walks three hours to school every day, no longer able to pay for a ride in a tuk tuk rickshaw. Bakers operate at a loss amid soaring flour prices. Workers in Lagos sleep overnight in their offices to avoid the prohibitive cost of commuting. Now the question is whether Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, with 220 million people, will thrive or just get sicker from the bitter medicine dispensed by its new president. Gas stations tripled their prices overnight.

Persons: Bola Tinubu, Tinubu Organizations: Workers, Gas Locations: Nigeria, Lagos, Africa’s, Africa

☆ Can Russia Tame Wagner in Africa Without Destroying It?
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-29 | by ( Elian Peltier | Raja Abdulrahim | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Hours after Yevgeny V. Prigozhin and his Wagner mercenary group ended their rebellion on Saturday, officials with the Russian Foreign Ministry phoned the president of the Central African Republic to assure him that the thousands of Wagner fighters deployed in his country would stay, and that Russia would keep looking for new ventures in Africa. Thousands of miles away, and as the rebellion was still underway, Russian troops in Syria had surrounded several bases that host Wagner fighters, fearing that the contagion might spread beyond Russia. Russia’s leadership had encountered some issues with “the head of the paramilitaries,” they told the Central African president, Faustin-Archange Touadéra, but those issues had been resolved and the Kremlin, they assured him, was in control. The Wagner group was the personal project of Mr. Prigozhin, who built it over nearly a decade into a sprawling enterprise, with tentacles reaching from Libya, across Africa and into the Middle East. The group has deployed troops in five African countries, and Mr. Prigozhin’s affiliates have been present in more than a dozen in total.

Persons: Yevgeny V, Prigozhin, Wagner, Russia’s, ” Organizations: Russian Foreign Ministry, Central African, Faustin, Kremlin Locations: Central African Republic, Russia, Africa, Syria, Libya

☆ Wedding Guests Among at Least 103 Killed in Boat Accident in Nigeria
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( Elian Peltier | Ismail Alfa | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

More than 100 people died, including many who were returning from a wedding ceremony, after a river boat transporting them capsized in the early hours of Monday in Nigeria, according to residents and the local police. “The boat capsized in complete darkness and it wasn’t until hours later that we were alerted,” Mr. Ajayi said. The death toll stood at 103 as of Tuesday evening and was likely to rise, he added. River boat accidents are a recurring issue in Nigeria, a West African nation where overloading, lax safety regulations, the absence of life jackets and poor maintenance often lead to deadly incidents. Nighttime sailing is outlawed across the country, but the ban remains poorly enforced.

Persons: Okasanmi Ajayi, ” Mr, Ajayi Locations: Nigeria, Niger, Kwara, West African

☆ ‘The State Killed My Brother’: Senegal in Uproar After Deadly Protests
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-12 | by ( Elian Peltier | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Issa Sarr spoke as he was waiting to collect his brother’s body at a morgue in Dakar. Minutes later, another family loaded the coffin of a man killed in the demonstrations on the roof of a hearse. The bullet punctured his right lung and came out of his arm, according to an autopsy report. In recent years, demonstrations against Mr. Sall have grown more violent, political opponents have been jailed, journalists arrested and news organizations suspended. But the police response was more violent this year, according to human rights organizations.

Persons: Issa Sarr, Sarr, Seyni, Elhadji, exceptionalism, Sonko’s Locations: Dakar, Canada, Senegal, France

☆ Senegal Deploys Military and Blocks Social Media After Deadly Clashes
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-02 | by ( Elian Peltier | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Mr. Sonko was sentenced to two years in prison in a case that his supporters said was politically motivated. Shortly after the verdict, demonstrators brawled with security forces, resulting in the deaths of at least nine people, according to the government. Periodic demonstrations have broken out in Senegal since the arrest of Mr. Sonko in 2021 after a massage parlor employee accused him of rape. But the violence of Thursday brought tensions in Senegal, a largely peaceful country, to a new high. Protesters fought with security forces in multiple neighborhoods of Dakar, and parts of the city’s main university were damaged.

Persons: —, Ousmane Sonko, Sonko Organizations: Protesters Locations: Senegal, Dakar, West

☆ Fleeing Generals at War and Violent Militias, Many Say ‘We’re Not Coming Back’
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Elian Peltier | Yagazie Emezi | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Militias, made up mostly of Arab fighters, have exploited the power vacuum to rampage through cities, loot households and kill an unknown number of civilians, according to aid workers, doctors and local activists. In response, some civilians have begun arming themselves, and non-Arab groups have also retaliated against militias at a small scale. But while Khartoum had been a peaceful city before April, Darfur has been torn by decades of violence. More than 300,000 people were killed in Darfur in the 2000s when Sudan’s former dictator, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, ordered militias, widely known as the Janjaweed, to crush a rebellion among non-Arab groups. Its eastern region, semiarid and isolated, already has more than 400,000 refugees from Darfur living in 13 camps, which are now filling with new arrivals helped by the U.N. refugee agency.

☆ Mysterious Killing of Chinese Gold Miners Puts New Pressure on Beijing
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Nicole Hong | Elian Peltier | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The Chinese embassy in the Central African Republic had a stark warning for its compatriots in the landlocked nation: Do not leave the capital city of Bangui. Kidnappings of foreigners were on the rise, and any Chinese person outside of Bangui was to leave those areas immediately. Less than a week later, on March 19, a group of gunmen stormed a remote gold mine far away from Bangui and killed nine Chinese workers. The Central African government has said that it investigated the massacre and concluded that a leading rebel group had orchestrated it. The investigation has left a trail of unanswered questions about the motives and methods of the attackers.

☆ Sudan’s Conflict Ignites Fears of Civil War in Darfur
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-29 | by ( Elian Peltier | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

After a cease-fire faltered in Sudan’s capital, two weeks of fighting between the country’s army and a paramilitary group have reignited violence in Darfur, a region scarred by two decades of genocidal conflict that left as many as 300,000 people dead. But attention has now focused on the Darfur region, where a security vacuum has emerged that diplomats and other observers fear may lead to civil war. Armed groups in Darfur have looted health care facilities and burned households, while marketplaces have gone up in flames. Civilians there have begun arming themselves against marauding militias and against the Rapid Support Forces, the paramilitary group fighting the Sudanese Army. “The tensions and the fighting we’re facing, they could lead to a civil war,” said Ahmed Gouja, a human rights monitor based in Nyala, Darfur’s largest city.

PinnedThe United States military airlifted embassy officials out of Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, amid continuing violence as rival military leaders battled for control of Africa’s third-largest country, President Biden said late on Saturday. (Mr. Godfrey — the first U.S. ambassador to Sudan in a quarter-century — arrived in the country about eight months ago.) They had lived in the same apartment buildings as some American diplomatic staff and arrived together at the embassy, he said. “I am proud of the extraordinary commitment of our embassy staff, who performed their duties with courage and professionalism and embodied America’s friendship and connection with the people of Sudan,” Mr. Biden said. Credit... Ebrahim Hamid/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesU.S. officials have said that about 16,000 American citizens were living in Sudan, many of them dual nationals.

☆ Sudan Army Chief Claims U.S. Citizens and Some Other Foreigners Will Be Evacuated
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-22 | by ( Elian Peltier | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The head of the Sudanese Army said on Saturday that citizens of the United States and a few other countries would be evacuated “in the coming hours” as the fighting between two clashing military factions entered its second week. The claims could not be immediately confirmed. A spokeswoman for France’s Foreign Ministry said she could not confirm the evacuation of any French diplomat or citizen. The international airport in Khartoum, the capital, has been closed amid the fighting, and roads across the country remain dangerous. Diplomats from Saudi Arabia were evacuated earlier by land to Port Sudan, in the country’s east, and flown to Saudi Arabia, according to General al-Burhan, with a similar operation expected to take place for Jordanian citizens.

A patchy cease-fire between Sudan’s two rival generals held in parts of the capital on Wednesday night, as desperate residents looked for ways to escape the city after five days trapped by the chaotic fighting with dwindling stocks of water and food. Evacuation from the capital, Khartoum, has proved intensely dangerous since conflict erupted over the weekend between Sudan’s military and a powerful paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces. Nearly 300 people have been killed and over 3,000 wounded since fighting erupted on Saturday, the World Health Organization said. Conditions have deteriorated with dizzying speed in Sudan, even by the standards of modern warfare. Khartoum was already a fragile city before fighting erupted on Saturday, with frequent power outages and soaring food prices.

☆ Fighting in Sudan Traps Families as Generals Fail to Keep a Cease-Fire
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-18 | by ( Abdi Latif Dahir | Elian Peltier | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Street battles and rocket strikes deepened the chaos across Sudan on Tuesday as a cease-fire between the country’s two warring generals fizzled, paralyzing the capital and trapping civilians in their homes for fear of the crossfire. Parents and children, doctors and students, officials and high-profile diplomats all have come under attack since the fighting broke out over the weekend. So did a diplomatic convoy carrying American citizens, and a senior E.U. At least 185 people have been killed and more than 1,800 injured in the past four days, United Nations officials said, though the true toll is most likely far higher. General Hamdan then called for a 24-hour cease-fire to allow civilians to evacuate or obtain desperately needed supplies.

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