Mali and Burkina Faso have warned other West African nations that military intervention in Niger will be considered a declaration of warfare against them.
The West African regional body – known as ECOWAS – has threatened to use force if coup leaders in Niger do not reinstate the presidentby the weekend.
But Mali and Burkina Faso, both run by military governments, have warned in a joint statement they will consider any direct intervention in Niger as a “declaration of war” against them.
The two countries – who are both suspended from ECOWAS – have also denounced the regional body’s economic sanctions against Niger as “illegal, illegitimate and inhumane” and have refused to apply them.
ECOWAS suspended all commercial and financial transactions between its member states and Niger, as well as freezing Nigerien assets held in regional central banks, in the wake of the military coup.
Niger – already one of the poorest countries in the world – has also faced cuts to foreign aid from Western nations following the military takeover.
Meanwhile, France and Italy have announced plans to evacuate their citizens from Niger, with officials in Paris also offering to repatriate European nationals.
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2:45
Could Niger align itself with Russia?
Mali and Burkina Faso, which neighbour Niger on its western border, have each undergone two coups since 2020. Both are currently suspended from ECOWAS as a result.
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The regional body has also imposed sanctions against the two ruling juntas, but has never threatened to use force against them.
Guinea, another country under military rule since 2021, has also shared its support of Niger’s junta and urged ECOWAS to “come to its senses”.
“The sanctions measures advocated by ECOWAS, including military intervention, are an option that would not be a solution to the current problem, but would lead to a human disaster whose consequences could extend beyond Niger’s borders,” said Ibrahima Sory Bangoura, general of the brigade in a statement from the ruling party.
He added the Guinea would not apply the sanctions.
Condemnation from the West
Mr Bazoum was elected two years ago in Niger’s first peaceful, democratic transfer of power since independence from France – and was largely seen as a Western, and regional, ally in West Africa.
Demonstrators in Niamey converged on the French embassy and set fire to its doors, stoned the building and burned the country’s flags.
Image: Mohamed Bazoum (R) pictured with Chad leader Mahamat Idriss Deby (L). Pic: Mahamat Idriss Deby/Facebook
Russian mercenary group Wagner is already operating in neighbouring Mali and its boss Yevgeny Prigozhin has hailed the coupas good news and offered his fighters’ services.
The Kremlin said the situation in Niger is “cause for serious concern”, with spokesperson Dmitry Peskov saying that Russia called for all sides in the coup to show restraint.
The coup in Niger has been widely condemned by neighbours and international partners including the US, the United Nations, the European Union and France.
They have all refused to recognise the new leaders and have demanded the elected president’s return.
France has also announced a planned evacuation from Niger for French and European nationals, citing recent violence outside its embassy in Niamey as one of the reasons for the decision.
The closure of Niger’s airspace also “leaves our compatriots unable to leave the country by their own means,” the ministry said.
Italy’s foreign minister on Tuesday said the government would also arrange a special flight to repatriate nationals from Niamey.
Image: Nigerien security forces prepare to disperse pro-junta demonstrators outside the French embassy, in Niamey
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken commended the resolve of the ECOWAS leadership to “defend constitutional order in Niger” after sanctions were announced.
He also joined the bloc in calling for the immediate release of Mr Bazoum and his family.
On Sunday, one of the leaders of the military coup, Colonel Amadou Abdramane, claimed the ousted government authorised France to carry out strikes to free the president.
He alleged the Niger foreign minister, acting as prime minister, signed the order allowing France to take action.
France – which ruled Niger as a colony until 1960 – has 1,500 soldiers in the country. They had been conducting joint operations with its government, with protesters appearing to be against having foreign military forces in their country.
The now-ruling military has warned foreign governments against trying to free Mr Bazoum, saying it would result in chaos and bloodshed.
France’s foreign ministry refused to confirm or deny that authorisation had been made, telling journalists the only authority it recognises is that of Mr Bazoum.
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1:29
Head of coup becomes Niger’s leader
Development aid suspended by France
Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world, receiving close to $2bn (£1.6bn) a year in official development assistance, according to the World Bank.
It is also a security partner of France and the US, which both use it as a base to fight an Islamist insurgency in West and Central Africa’s wider Sahel region.
Conflict experts say out of all the countries in the region, Niger has the most at stake if it turns away from the West, given the millions of dollars of military assistance the international community has poured in.
Image: Pro-junta demonstrators gathered outside the French embassy
France has suspended all development aid and other financial aid for Niger.
The Elysee Palace said in a statement: “Anyone who attacks French nationals, the military, diplomats, or French interests will spur an immediate and uncompromising response from France.”
In the UK, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said in a statement that Britain “condemns in the strongest possible terms attempts to undermine democracy, peace and stability in Niger”.
Footage has emerged of the moment 15 aid workers were killed in Gaza last month – showing their ambulances and fire insignia were clearly visible when Israeli troops are believed to have opened fire on them.
The bodies of 15 aid workers – eight medics working for the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), six civil defence members, and one United Nations employee – were found in a “mass grave” after the incident, according to the head of the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Jonathan Whittall.
The Israeli military said it is investigating – claiming before the video came to light that its initial inquiry found its troops opened fire on vehicles without headlights or emergency signals, which therefore looked “suspicious”. It also says there was an evacuation order in place in the area at the time of the incident.
But video footage obtained by the PRCS – and verified by Sky News – shows ambulances and a fire vehicle clearly marked with flashing red lights.
Image: Vehicles are seen with red flashing lights in the footage
Sky News has used aftermath video and satellite imagery to verify the location and timing of the footage.
It was filmed on 23 March north of Rafah. It shows a convoy of marked ambulances and a fire-fighting vehicle travelling south along a road towards central Rafah. All of the vehicles visible in the convoy have their flashing lights on.
It was filmed early in the morning, with a satellite image seen by Sky News taken at 9.48am local time on the same day showing a group of vehicles bunched together off the road.
The PRCS first posted about losing contact with its crews just before 7am local time.
Satellite imagery shows the area on 26 March, three days later. Tyre tracks are visible, as are groundworks likely created by military vehicles.
Image: Pic: Planet Labs PBC
The footage is first filmed from inside a moving vehicle, through the windscreen a convoy of vehicles is visible – including ambulances and a fire truck with flashing emergency signal lights.
When the convoy stops, a vehicle is seen having veered off the road to the left-hand side.
The vehicle where the video is being filmed from stops and the aid workers get out. Intense gunfire then breaks out and continues for around five minutes.
The paramedic filming the video is heard saying in Arabic that there are Israelis present – and reciting a declaration of faith used before someone dies.
Hebrew voices are also heard in the background but it is not clear what they are saying.
Image: The footage was filmed from a moving vehicle
Israel conducting ‘thorough examination’
In a fresh statement on Saturday, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said the incident is “under thorough examination”.
“All claims, including the documentation circulating about the incident, will be thoroughly and deeply examined to understand the sequence of events and the handling of the situation,” it added.
In its statement on Saturday, the PCRS said the clip was “found on the phone of martyred EMT Rif’at Radwan, after his body was recovered” and that it “clearly shows that the ambulances and fire trucks they were using were visibly marked, with flashing emergency lights on at the time they were attacked”.
“This video unequivocally refutes the occupation’s claims that Israeli forces did not randomly target ambulances, and that some vehicles had approached ‘suspiciously without lights or emergency markings’,” it added.
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Speaking at the United Nations on Friday, PRCS president Dr Younis Al Khatib said the organisation has “asked for an independent investigation”.
He added: “Something I can release, I heard the voice of one of those kids. I heard the voice of one of those team members who was killed and his phone was found with his body and he recorded the whole event.
“His last words before being shot, ‘Forgive me, mom. I just wanted to help people. I wanted to save lives’.”
Image: Pic: Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS)
Dylan Winder, permanent observer of the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) said it is “outraged at the deaths of eight medics from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society killed on duty in Gaza“.
“They were humanitarians. They wore emblems that should have been protected. Their ambulances were clearly marked, and they should have returned to their families. They did not,” he said.
“Even in the most complex conflict zones, there are rules. These rules of international humanitarian law could not be clearer: civilians must be protected, humanitarians must be protected, health services must be protected.”
In a statement issued before the footage of the incident emerged, the IDF said it condemned “the repeated use of civilian infrastructure by the terrorist organisations in the Gaza Strip, including the use of medical facilities and ambulances for terrorist purposes”.
It claimed that several members of the militant groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad were killed in the incident.
It did not comment directly on the deaths of the Red Crescent workers but later told the Reuters news agency it had allowed the bodies to be recovered from the area, which it described as an active combat zone.
Image: Fifteen people died in the incident on 23 March
Bodies found in ‘mass grave’
The bodies of the missing aid workers were found in sand in the south of the Gaza Strip in what Mr Whittall, called a “mass grave”, marked with the emergency light from a crushed ambulance.
He posted pictures and video of Red Crescent teams digging in the sand for the bodies and workers laying them out on the ground, covered in plastic sheets.
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1:22
Bodies of aid workers found in Gaza
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), said that the bodies had been “discarded in shallow graves” in what he called “a profound violation of human dignity”.
According to the UN, at least 1,060 healthcare workers have been killed in the 18 months since Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after Hamas fighters stormed southern Israel on 7 October 2023.
The UN is reducing its international staff in Gaza by a third because of safety concerns.
Palestinian health authorities say more than 50,000 people have been killed since Israel launched its campaign in Gaza in response to the 7 October assault, when Hamas militants crossed the border into southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 people, and taking some 250 hostage.
Gaza’s health ministry records do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Gaza’s health ministry has removed 1,852 people from its official list of war fatalities since October, after finding that some had died of natural causes or were alive but had been imprisoned.
The list of deaths currently stands at 50,609 following the removals. Gaza’s health ministry records do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Almost all of the names removed (97%) had initially been submitted through an online form which allows families to record the deaths of loved ones where the body is missing.
The head of the statistics team at Gaza’s health ministry, Zaher Al Wahidi, told Sky News that names submitted via the form had been removed as a precautionary measure pending a judicial investigation into each one.
“We realised that a lot of people [submitted via the form] died a natural death,” Mr Wahidi said. “Maybe they were near an explosion and they had a heart attack, or [living in destroyed] houses caused them pneumonia or hypothermia. All these cases we don’t [attribute to] the war.”
Others submitted via the form were found to be imprisoned or to be missing with insufficient evidence that they had died.
Some families submitting false claims, Mr Wahidi said, may have been motivated by the promise of government financial assistance.
It is the largest removal of names from the list since the war began, and comes after 1,441 names were removed between August and October – 54% of them originating in hospital morgue records rather than the online form.
Mr Wahidi says his team audited the hospital data after receiving complaints from people who had ended up on the list despite being alive.
They found that hospital clerks, when operating without access to the central population registry and lacking full names or dates of birth for the dead, had marked the wrong people as dead in their records.
In total, 8% of people who were listed as dead in August have since been removed from the official death toll. Many of those may later be added back in, as the judicial investigations proceed.
‘It doesn’t look like manipulation’
Gabriel Epstein, a research assistant at US thinktank The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said there’s no reason to think the errors are the result of deliberate manipulation intended to inflate the share of women and children among the dead.
“If 90% of the removed entries were men aged 18-40, that would look like manipulation,” he said. “But it doesn’t look like that.”
Of those entries removed since the start of the war and whose demographic information was recorded, 41% are men aged 18 to 60, while 59% are women, children and elderly people.
By comparison, 44% of remaining deaths are working-age men. This means that the removals have had the effect of slightly reducing the share of women and children in the official list.
Names were previously added to the list without verification
Until October, Mr Wahidi said, names submitted via the online form had been added to the official list of registered deaths before undergoing a judicial confirmation process.
The publication of unverified deaths submitted via the form had previously led to issues with the data, with 1,295 deaths submitted via the form being removed from the list prior to October. This included 474 people who were later added back again.
Sky News previously understood that names from the form were only published after undergoing judicial confirmation. However, Mr Wahidi says this practice only began in October.
“This does cause me to downgrade the quality of the earlier lists, definitely below where I thought they were,” said Professor Michael Spagat, chair of Every Casualty Counts, an independent civilian casualty monitoring organisation.
A Ministry of Health document from July 2024 confirms that names submitted through the online form were, at the time, included in the official fatality list before being verified.
These names “are initially included in the final count of martyrs, but verification procedures are undertaken afterward”, the document says.
“They basically said that they were posting these things provisionally pending investigation,” said Prof Spagat.
“There may have been literally zero people, including us, who actually absorbed this message, but they weren’t hiding it either.”
More than 1,200 Israelis have been killed in the 7 October attack and ensuing war.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
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