The first plane carrying mostly French and European people evacuated from Niger landed in Paris early Wednesday, a week after a coup toppled President Mohamed Bazoum. It is the first time that France has staged a large-scale evacuation in its former colonies in the Sahel.
It comes a week after Niger's President Mohamed Bazoum was detained by his own presidential guard in what is the third coup in as many years in the Sahel, following putsches in neighbouring fellow former French colonies Mali (2021) and Burkina Faso (2022).
West African leaders, supported by their Western partners, have threatened to use force to reinstate the democratically elected Bazoum and slapped financial sanctions on the junta.
After anti-French protests unleashed by the coup, Paris on Tuesday said it would withdraw its nationals from the capital Niamey.
Borders reopened
"The violence that took place against our embassy" and the risk of "closure of the airspace that would leave our compatriots without the possibility to leave," authorities said.
The Niger junta, however, announced late Tuesday that it had reopened the country's land and air borders with five neighbouring countries.
"There are 262 people on board the plane, an Airbus A330, including a dozen babies," French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna told French news agency AFP before the first evacuation flight landed at Paris Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport shortly after 1:30 am Wednesday (2330 GMT Tuesday).
Four flights planned
"Nearly all the passengers are compatriots" along with "some European nationals," she said.
There were also Nigeriens, Portuguese, Belgians, Ethiopians and Lebanese on board, the foreign ministry told reporters at the airport.
The evacuation was "well organised, it was fairly quick, for me everything went well", said Bernard, who had been working in Niger for the European Union for two months.
"It feels good," said a relieved Raissa Kelembho, who returned from Niger with her two boys. "At one point, there was a feeling of insecurity, we knew that everything could change," said Kelembho, whose husband remained in Niger for work.
A second plane carrying French, Nigerien, German, Belgian, Canadian, American, Austrian and Indian nationals was due to land, with a total of four flights planned so far in an operation expected to end by midday Wednesday.
In Berlin, the foreign ministry urged "all German nationals" to take up the French evacuation offer. It said that fewer than 100 German civilians were believed to be in Niger.
In Washington, the White House said the United States was not joining European allies in evacuating citizens for now, citing a lack of immediate danger. About 1,100 US troops are in Niger.
African delegations to visit
The military chiefs of ECOWAS members will meet in the Nigerian capital Abuja from Wednesday to Friday to discuss the coup.
A delegation from the West African bloc led by former Nigerian president Abdulsalami Abubakar is also due to visit Niger on Wednesday.
The dramatic events are unfolding in one of the world's poorest and most unstable countries – a vast semi-desert nation that had already experienced four coups since independence in 1960.
Bazoum was feted in 2021 after winning elections that ushered in Niger's first-ever peaceful transition of power, but his tenure was already marked by two attempted coups.
Guards chief General Abdourahamane Tchiani has declared himself leader – but his claim has been rejected internationally.
The coup has worried Western countries against a backdrop of a jihadist insurgency that flared in northern Mali in 2012, advanced into Niger and Burkina Faso three years later and now overshadows fragile states on the Gulf of Guinea.
(with AFP)
