Exclusive report by Africa ExPress
Cornelia I. Toelgyes
August 11, 2023

Yesterday ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS), at its meeting in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, ordered the deployment of a “reserve force” to restore constitutional order in Niger. Tomorrow, army chiefs will meet in Accra, capital of Ghana.

ECOWAS, which still hopes to reach a peaceful resolution to the crisis, has so far not released details of any intervention. It is not known when and if troops will intervene or which state will provide its soldiers.

Meanwhile, Paris has given full support to the ECOWAS initiative, and this morning Moussa Faki Mahamat, chairman of the African Union Commission also did so, stressing that he is very concerned about the conditions of detention of Niger’s head of state, Mohamd Bazout, democratically elected in 2021 and ousted by coup plotters on July 26. And in response to the regional bloc’s decision not to rule out armed intervention, hundreds of pro-takeover Nigeris demonstrated in front of a French military base in Niamey today.

The sanctions put in place against the coup-makers’ Niger have been maintained and should even be strengthened, obviously to the detriment of the population.

In the event of a military intervention by ECOWAS and the escalation of the conflict, agencies and NGOs engaged in the field are concerned that the humanitarian crisis in the country, one of the poorest in the world, could be worryingly escalated.

Lancinet Toupou, coordinator of Médecins du Monde Belgium’s operations in Niger, explained, “More than four million people are dependent on humanitarian aid,” and added, “There is a risk that children’s vaccinations or treatment of the aftermath of sexual violence will be jeopardized by a lack of medicines. Any resort to arms would further aggravate the situation of the poorest.”

The international community is currently concerned about the detention conditions of President Bazoum, who is a hostage of the coup plotters, who just yesterday threatened to kill him in case of a military attack by ECOWAS.

The leader of the Sudanese Rapid Support Forces, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also watches the fate of the Niger president with apprehension from Khartoum. The two are fraternal friends, and many in the former Anglo-Egyptian protectorate are closely following developments in Niger, even though it is not a neighboring country, because many Arab militias, including Niger ones, are fighting alongside Hemetti’s paramilitaries in Sudan.

It should be noted that Arabs from the Reizegat tribe (to which Hemetti belongs) live not only in Sudan but also in several countries (Mali, Niger, Chad and others) although they are called by other names.

Bazoum has always been considered one of the most reliable partners for many Western countries in an unstable region, but this is yet another demonstration that ethnic-tribal alliances are above political arrangements.

With the establishment of the Rapid Support Forces in 2013, Hemetti catapulted Arab militias from several countries into Darfur. Many of these fighters have even brought their families with them, settling in homes and farms abandoned by people of African descent because of the war.

Relations between Hemeti and Bazoum have strengthened since the latter’s bid for the presidency. According to some information reported by the online newspaper Sudanscoop, the RSF commander reportedly supported Bazoum’s campaign with more than $20 million. Africa ExPress has not been able to verify these reports, which, again according to the Sudanese newspaper, would have been confirmed by security sources and Western diplomats in Niamey.

The fact remains that once the elections were won, Bazoum at the inauguration ceremony did not invite the Sudanese head of state Abdel Fattah al-Burhan , but rather his fraternal friend Hemetti, then vice president of the former Anglo-Egyptian condominium.

It is estimated that more than 4,000 Niger Mahamid, (under the Arab Reizegat tribe, from the Diffa region in the east of the country) are currently fighting in Sudan under the banner of the RSF. Bazoum is descended from one of the Mahamid branches, the Awlad Suleiman, who are also present in Libya.

Some of these Arab militia fighters have joined the RSF before, were trained under the supervision of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, and took part in the conflict in Yemen with the Saudi-led coalition against the Houthis. While others recently arrived in Sudan after the conflict between the two generals began to replace losses suffered by Hemetti’s paramilitaries.