About a week after being shut after the overthrow of elected president Mohamed Bazoum, Niger’s land and air borders with five of its neighbours have now been restored, one of the coup’s organisers declared on national television on Tuesday.
He said that “as of today” the land and air borders with Algeria, Burkina Faso, Libya, Mali, and Chad are once again open.
Tuesday night just after 01:30 (23:30 GMT), a first French airliner carrying 262 people, including some European citizens, touched down at Paris-Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport, an airport source informed AFP.
The reopening of borders with five neighboring countries also comes just a few days before the end of the ultimatum to restore constitutional order, demanded on Sunday by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which does not rule out the use of “force” if it is not respected.
Pressure on the military putschists is increasing internationally.
Niger’s Western and African partners have widely denounced the coup d’état, and the European Union (EU), France and Germany have suspended aid to a country economically dependent on foreign allies.
Niger, plagued by attacks by groups linked to the Islamic State and al-Qaeda in the west and southeast, is one of the world’s poorest countries, despite its uranium resources.
