West Africa bloc lifts coup sanctions on Niger in a new push for dialogue to resolve tensions
West Africa’s regional bloc known as ECOWAS has lifted travel, commercial and economic sanctions imposed on Niger which were aimed at reversing the coup staged in the country last year
ABUJA, Nigeria — West Africa’s regional bloc known as ECOWAS said Saturday that it is lifting travel and economic sanctions imposed on Niger that were aimed at reversing last year's coup in the country in a new push for dialogue as it also renewed calls on three junta-led nations to rescind their decision to quit the regional bloc.
The sanctions will be lifted with immediate effect, the president of the ECOWAS Commission, Omar Alieu Touray, said after the bloc’s meeting in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, that aimed to address existential threats facing the region as well as implore three junta-led nations that have quit the bloc to rescind their decision.
After elite soldiers toppled Niger’s democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum on July 26, neighbors shut their borders with Niger and more than 70% of its electricity, supplied by Nigeria, was cut off after financial and commercial transactions with West African countries were suspended. Niger’s assets in external banks were frozen and hundreds of millions of dollars in aid were withheld.
The sanctions, however, emboldened the junta in Niger and two other coup-hit countries of Mali and Burkina Faso, resulting in the three countries forming an alliance and announcing the unprecedented decision last month that they have quit the 15-member bloc. Analysts have called their withdrawal the bloc's biggest crisis since its formation in 1975.
The lifting of the sanctions on Niger is “on purely humanitarian grounds” to ease the suffering caused as a result, Touray told reporters. “There are
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