NIAMEY, Niger (AP) — The leader of mutinous soldiers who ousted Niger's democratically elected president said Saturday night that they will return the country to civilian rule within three years. Gen.
NIAMEY, Niger — The leader of mutinous soldiers who ousted Niger's democratically elected president said Saturday night that they will return the country to civilian rule within three years.
ECOWAS on Aug. 10 ordered the deployment of a “standby force” to restore constitutional rule in Niger. On Friday, the ECOWAS commissioner for peace and security, Abdel-Fatau Musah, said 11 of its 15 member states had agreed to commit troops to military intervention, saying they were “ready to go.” “The putschists won’t be holding their breath this time over the renewed threat of military action,” said Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel program at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a think tank.
Also on Saturday, the new U.S. ambassador to Niger, Kathleen FitzGibbon, arrived in the capital, said Matthew Miller, spokesman for the State Department. The U.S. hasn’t had an ambassador in the country for nearly two years. Some people said they'd been waiting since 3 a.m., while groups of youths boisterously chanted in favor of the junta and against ECOWAS and the country's former colonial ruler France.
Before the coup, nearly 3 million people were facing severe food insecurity and hundreds of thousands were internally displaced, according to CARE, an international aid group. Economic and travel sanctions imposed by ECOWAS after the coup, coupled with the deteriorating security, will have dire consequences for the population, CARE said.
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