Deposed Niger president's escape attempt thwarted

NIAMEY, Niger

Niger’s ruling junta said late Thursday it had thwarted an overnight attempt by deposed President Mohamed Bazoum to escape detention with his family nearly three months after he was detained in the wake of a military coup.

In a communique, Col. Maj. Amadou Abdramane said that Bazoum tried to reach a waiting vehicle at around 3 a.m. that was to take him to the outskirts of the capital, Niamey, along with his family, two cooks and his security personnel.

From there, they were to be flown to Nigeria aboard “two helicopters belonging to a foreign power,” Abdramane said.

“This plan to destabilize our country was thwarted,” Abdramane said, adding that the main perpetrators had been arrested and an investigation has already been opened by the public prosecutor.

Bazoum has been under house arrest with his wife and son since being ousted in July, and has refused to resign. The junta had cut off his electricity and water.

The United States has formally declared that the ousting of Bazoum was a coup, suspending hundreds of millions of dollars in aid as well as military assistance and training.

Niger was seen by many in the West as the last country in Africa’s Sahel region — the vast expanse south of the Sahara Desert — that could be partnered with to beat back a growing jihadi insurgency linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group.

In the wake of the July coup, however, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France w as ending its military presence and would pull its ambassador out of the country. French troops already have been ousted by military regimes in neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso, which are both seeing a surge in attacks.