BRUSSELS: EU chief Charles Michel warned there will be “grave consequences” if Niger’s military regime allows ousted President Mohammed Bazoum’s health to worsen under house arrest, a European official said on Friday.
In a call to President Bola Tinubu of Nigeria, chair of the ECOWAS regional bloc which opposes the Niger coup, Michel said “President Bazoum’s detention conditions are deteriorating.”
Bazoum, 63, was detained on July 26 by members of his presidential guard, in the fifth coup to hit Niger since independence from France in 1960. He and his family are detained in the presidential palace.
“The Nigerian president stressed the determination and political will of ECOWAS to act together. ECOWAS will maintain their sanctions despite the economic impact these have on some of the countries from the region,” the official said.
Michel “reiterated the EU’s full support and backing of ECOWAS’ decisions, as well as firm condemnation of the unacceptable coup de force in Niger.
“The EU will not recognize the authorities resulting from the putsch in Niger. President Bazoum, democratically elected, remains the legitimate head of state of Niger,” she said.
“President Bazoum’s detention conditions are deteriorating. Any further deterioration to his well-being status will have grave consequences.”
Sources said on Friday that violence erupted this week in a string of villages in remote southwest Niger leaving at least 28 civilians dead,
“For now we have recorded at least 28 dead, but the toll could go up,” said a senior official in the Tillaberi region close to Mali.
Some of the bodies had been “carried off” by the Niger River, he added.
The violence started at sunset on Tuesday and ended midday on Wednesday, the official said.
In Ayorou, one of four departments affected, four people were killed and 26 injured by bullets and knives, according to a local source.
The military authorities who overthrew the president did not confirm the killings.
One security source said “about 100 civilians” had died in the latest violence near the borders with Burkina Faso and Mali where terorists regularly strike.
A figure in the region’s civil society said the violence was due to a “cycle of reprisals” between Peul herders and settled Djerma people who both populate the area.
“There was an attack against the herders so armed herder youths carried out reprisals ... and that was repeated in other villages,” the civil society member said.
The two groups clashed at the end of April and in early May in villages and hamlets along the river leaving dozens dead and wounded. Thousands were temporarily displaced.
A local radio journalist said that the April-May clashes followed “several murders” of villagers by suspected jihadists who steal cattle and levy taxes.
Under president Bazoum the authorities have regularly run awareness campaigns warning people of attempts by jihadists to inflame communal tensions.
