Nigerien president who was overthrown tries to flee – coup leaders

The new authorities assert that Mohamed Bazoum had intended to board two foreign-owned helicopters together with a number of his colleagues.

According to the nation’s new leaders, expelled president of Niger Mohamed Bazoum, who has been under house arrest since being deposed in a coup in July, made an effort to flee on Thursday.

Around 2:00 GMT, Bazoum attempted to depart with “his family, two cooks, and two security elements,” but the plan was prevented, according to a statement from the Nigerien Ministry of Defence.

The group was allegedly planning to use two helicopters “belonging to a foreign power” to fly to the neighbouring country of Nigeria after driving a car to a hideout in the Tchangarey neighbourhood outside of the capital city of Niamey.

According to the ministry, the claimed attempt was thwarted because to the Defence and Security Forces’ (FDS) quick response, which it attributed to the “irresponsible attitude of the deposed President and his accomplices.”

“The primary offenders and a few of their associates have been detained. The case has been turned over to the public prosecutor, who has already started an inquiry. It was added that everything was in control.

In response to growing Islamist insurgencies, which the coup leaders felt the civilian administration had failed to suppress despite foreign military support, Nigerien soldiers ousted the pro-Western Bazoum from office on July 26. Since then, Bazoum has been detained despite regional and international pressure on the military rulers to free him and reinstate his reign. Bazoum has refused to formally quit as president.

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The French government has frequently maintained that it would back an armed intervention by the West African regional grouping ECOWAS, despite the fact that the new authorities had already accused France of planning one.

On the request of the recently established military administration, France, which had roughly 1,500 troops in Niger and had been carrying out operations against jihadist insurgencies in the Sahel region, started to remove its forces last week.

Paris, whose representative to Niamey was also ousted, expects the withdrawal of French soldiers to be finished by the end of the year.

Although the United States has multiple military installations in the formerly French colony, including at least two drone stations to support counterterrorism operations in the Sahel, it wasn’t until last week that it officially recognised the military coup as a “coup d’état” and cut off aid to the nation.