UN Reminds West Africa's Security Could Be Affected By The Niger Coup

ILLUSTRATION OF UNSPLASH/Jonathan Ansel Moy de Vitry

JAKARTA - The United Nations (UN) on Tuesday warned of a bad security situation in West Africa as a result of a coup that took place in Niger last week.

"The ongoing crisis, if not addressed, will exacerbate the security situation in the region," said Leonardo Santos Simao, head of the United Nations Office for West Africa and Sahel.

"This will also have a negative impact on the development and life of people in a country where 4.3 million people need humanitarian assistance."

"Niger and others do not need a coup," he said.

Simao said the United Nations had not been involved in negotiations so far, but fully supported all efforts to restore the democratic order in the country.

A group of soldiers who called themselves the National Council for State Security detained President Mohamed Bazoum last week.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed concern over the arrest of a number of government members, deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said.

Guterres urged Niger to comply with his international human rights obligations and immediately restore the constitutional order, he said.

United States Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas Greenfield, who currently led the Security Council during August, said she had spoken to Bazoum last Thursday.

"He looks fine. He is under house arrest with his family. He doesn't sound depressed, but I know that the situation he is currently facing is indeed very tense," Greenfield said.

Bazoum was elected in 2021, in the first democratic transition to power since the country's independence from French colonialism in 1960.

Leaders of the Economic Community of West African Countries (ECOWAS) issued an ultimatum on Sunday to the junta to return the elected president democratically within a week or face military intervention from countries in the region.

The West African organization also stated that it would immediately suspend "all trade and financial transactions" with Niger.