Niger goes into red zone

Text by: RFI Follow

3 min

As a result of the attack on French aid workers in Niger on Sunday, the Quai d'Orsay is reviewing the color of the map of Niger which appears in its travel advice. The whole country turns red, that is to say strongly discouraged. Only the capital Niamey remains orange, that is to say not recommended unless there is a compelling reason.

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For the Quai d'Orsay , Niger is now completely red unlike its neighbors in Mali and Burkina Faso. The country therefore appears to be the most at risk in the Sahel. These new recommendations from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sound like the first concrete decision taken after President Macron's announcement to strengthen the security of expatriates in the region.

Concretely, the regions of Tahoua, Zinder and Maradi are today strongly discouraged, as is the city of Agadez. But why does the country become impracticable overnight, what geographical link between Kouré where Sunday's attack took place and Zinder? this is the questioning of several French people who work closely with Niger.

It might have been better to take preventive measures in the face of growing insecurity, rather than shutting down the country radically, comments a specialist in the Sahel. Another adds: “  putting on red sounds like a symbolic victory for the jihadists.  "

" These are the paradoxes of the precautionary principle," explains one behind the scenes of the Quai d'Orsay, " we are closing ourselves to certain areas to reduce the overall risk.  "

This precautionary principle will inevitably have an impact on the access of humanitarian workers to certain areas as well as on the movements of French people in Niger, whether they are academics or economic operators. Even if this impact is currently impossible to quantify.

Asked by RFI, the Nigerien authorities have so far not wished to react to this classification in the red zone of their country.

■ Humanitarian workers escape their captors

Two of the ten humanitarian workers from the NGO API, a partner of the WFP, kidnapped on June 24 in the village of Bossey Bangou not far from the border with Burkina Faso, have just regained their freedom. They escaped on Wednesday August 12 from the hands of their captors. The information is confirmed by the prefecture of Torodi. They are currently safe at an army base in Boni.

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