Niger’s military rulers have banned “French aircraft” from flying over the country’s airspace, according to the Agency for the Safety of Air Navigation in Africa and Madagascar (ASECNA) website.

Niger’s airspace is “open to all national and international commercial flights except for French aircraft or aircraft chartered by France including those of the airline Air France,” it said in the statement dated late Saturday.

The air space would remain closed for “all military, operational and other special flights”, unless receiving prior authorisation, the message said.

Air France told AFP simply that it was “not flying over Niger airspace”.

Niger had reopened its airspace on September 4 for commercial flights after having been closed for nearly a month.

The West African nation then announced on August 6 it was closing its airspace due to the “threat of intervention from neighbouring countries”, as the Economic Community of West African States threatened military action to restore the elected President Mohamed Bazoum who had been overthrown in a coup on July 26.

France has repeatedly supported the West African bloc, and relations between Paris and Niamey have been at an all-time low since the coup.

Source: AFP

The son of Ali Bongo Ondimba and several allies of the ousted Gabon president have been charged with high treason and corruption and placed in custody, the state prosecutor told AFP Wednesday.

Bongo’s eldest son Noureddin Bongo Valentin and former presidential spokesman Jessye Ella Ekogha, as well as four others close to the deposed leader, “have been charged and placed in provisional detention,” said Libreville prosecutor Andre-Patrick Roponat.

Bongo, 64, who had ruled the oil-rich central African country since 2009, was ousted by military leaders on August 30, moments after being proclaimed the winner in a presidential election.

The result was branded a fraud by the opposition and the military coup leaders, who have also accused his regime of widespread corruption and bad governance.

On the same day as the coup, soldiers arrested one of Bongo’s sons, five senior cabinet officials and his wife Sylvia Bongo Valentin.

National TV showed rolling images of those arrested in front of suitcases filled with cash allegedly seized from their homes.

Source: AFP

Tunisian authorities expelled hundreds of sub-Saharan African migrants from the port of Sfax Sunday after they were thrown out of their homes during unrest in July, a rights group said.

“The security forces on Sunday evacuated a square where some 500 migrants were assembled in the centre of Sfax,” Romdane Ben Amor, spokesman for the FTDES non-government organisation, told AFP.

He said the migrants were “dispersed in small groups towards rural areas and other towns”.

Since Saturday, authorities in Tunisia have been cracking down on illegal migrants, most of whom are from sub-Saharan African countries.

According to authorities, around 200 migrants “who were preparing to make the clandestine boat trip” towards Europe were arrested.

Tunisia is a major gateway for migrants and asylum-seekers attempting perilous sea voyages in hopes of a better life in the European Union.

Racial tensions flared in Tunisia’s second city of Sfax after the July 3 killing of a Tunisian man following an altercation with migrants.

Humanitarian sources say that at least 2,000 sub-Saharan Africans were expelled or forcibly transferred by Tunisian security forces to desert regions bordering Libya and Algeria.

Xenophobic attacks targeting black African migrants and students increased after an incendiary speech in February by President Kais Saied.

He alleged that “hordes” of illegal migrants were causing crime and posing a demographic threat to the mainly Arab North African country.

Hundreds of migrants lost their jobs and housing after his remarks.

At least 27 people died and 73 others were listed as missing after being expelled into desert areas bordering Libya in July.

Source: AFP

The military leaders of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger on Saturday signed a mutual defence pact, ministerial delegations from the three Sahel countries announced in Mali’s capital Bamako.

Its aim is to “establish an architecture of collective defence and mutual assistance for the benefit of our populations”, he wrote.

The Liptako-Gourma region — where the Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger borders meet — has been ravaged by jihadism in recent years.

“This alliance will be a combination of military and economic efforts between the three countries”, Mali’s Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop told journalists.

“Our priority is the fight against terrorism in the three countries.”

A jihadist insurgency that erupted in northern Mali in 2012 spread to Niger and Burkina Faso in 2015.

Mutual defence pact

The charter signed on Saturday binds the signatories to assist one another — including militarily — in the event of an attack on any one of them.

“Any attack on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of one or more contracting parties shall be considered as an aggression against the other parties and shall give rise to a duty of assistance… including the use of armed force to restore and ensure security”, it states.

Source: AFP

A powerful 6.8-magnitude earthquake has struck Morocco, killing at least 632 people and injuring 329 others.

The quake struck at 44 miles (71 kilometers) southwest of Marrakesh at a depth of 18.5 kilometers at 11:11 pm (2211 GMT) Friday, the US Geological Survey said. The quake’s epicenter was in a remote area of the High Atlas Mountains.

The earthquake killed people in the provinces and municipalities of al-Haouz, Marrakesh, Ouarzazate, Azilal, Chichaoua and Taroudant, Morocco’s Interior Ministry said in a statement.

The ministry further noted that authorities have “mobilized all the necessary resources to intervene and help the affected areas”.

The quake reportedly caused widespread panic and damaged buildings across cities.

Terrified residents of Marrakesh reported “unbearable” screams following the tremor, with hospitals in the city reportedly seeing a “massive influx” of injured people.

“We felt a very violent tremor, and I realized it was an earthquake,” Abdelhak El Amrani, a Marrakesh resident told AFP.

“I could see buildings moving,” he said, adding that power and phone lines were down for ten minutes.

“People were all in shock and panic. The children were crying and the parents were distraught.”

Fayssal Badour, another Marrakesh resident, told AFP that he was driving when the earthquake hit.

“I stopped and realized what a disaster it was. It was very serious, as if a river had burst its banks. The screaming and crying was unbearable,” he said.

According to local media, a family was trapped in the rubble after their house collapsed in the town of Al-Haouz, near the epicenter of the quake.

Tremors were also reportedly felt in the capital Rabat, as well as the coastal cities of Casablanca and Essaouira.

The earthquake was also felt in neighboring Algeria, where the Algerian Civil Defense said it had not caused any damage or casualties.

Source: Presstv

Gabon’s former president Ali Bongo, who was ousted in a putsch, is free to leave the country and travel abroad, the leader of the coup that toppled him said on Wednesday.

“He has freedom of movement… and can travel abroad if he wishes,” general Brice Oligui Nguema said in a statement read on state television.

Bongo, in power for 14 years, had been under house arrest since the military coup of August 30, carried out without bloodshed less than an hour after his party proclaimed his re-election in a vote described as fraudulent by the putschists.

“Given his state of health, the former President of the Republic Ali Bongo Ondimba has freedom of movement. He can travel abroad if he wishes to carry out his medical checks,” Colonel Ulrich Manfoumbi Manfoumbi said, reading a press release signed by Oligui, who took his oath as transitional president on Monday.

Bongo suffered a serious stroke in October 2018 which left him physically impaired, with particular difficulty moving his right leg and arm.

Source: AFP

Niger on Monday reopened its airspace nearly a month after imposing a ban following a military coup in July, the official Nigerien news agency ANP said.

After taking power on July 26, the coup leaders closed the country’s airspace before reopening it again on August 2 – a measure that was reversed on August 6 after regional countries threatened to intervene militarily to restore civilian rule.

“The airspace of the Republic of Niger is open to all national and international commercial flights,” the agency quoted a transport ministry spokesman as saying, adding that ground services had also resumed.

It added that Niger airspace remained closed to all operational military flights and others requiring prior authorisation from the relevant authorities.

The Economic Community of West African States has imposed sanctions on Niger after the ousting of President Mohamed Bazoum and the bloc threatened military intervention as a last resort if talks fail to restore civilian rule.

On August 2, Niger reopened land and air borders with five neighbouring countries: Algeria, Burkina Faso, Libya, Mali and Chad.

Some flights that have received special authorisation have been able to continue to use the airport in the capital Niamey.

On Friday, the United Nations warned that tons of food aid destined for Niger was stuck in transit due to border closures.

Source: AFP

Gabon’s army said on Saturday that it would reopen the country’s borders, closed in the wake of the military coup that ousted ex-president Ali Bongo.

A spokesman for Gabon’s military rulers said on state TV that they had “decided with immediate effect to reopen the land, sea and air borders as of this Saturday”.

A group of 12 Gabonese soldiers had announced on Wednesday that the country’s borders were closed until further notice, in a statement broadcast on the Gabon 24 television channel.

General Brice Oligui Nguema, the head of the elite Republican Guard, on Wednesday led officers in a coup against President Ali Bongo Ondimba, scion of a family that had ruled for 55 years.

His ousting came just moments after Bongo, 64, was proclaimed victor in presidential elections at the weekend — a result branded a fraud by the opposition.

The coup leaders said they had dissolved the nation’s institutions and cancelled the election results as well as closing the borders.

Oligui is due on Monday to be sworn in as “transitional president”.

General Brice Oligui Nguema, the man named to lead Gabon after coup

Five other countries in Africa — Mali, Guinea, Sudan, Burkina Faso and Niger — have undergone coups in the last three years. Their new rulers have resisted demands for a short timetable for returning to barracks.

Source: AFP