A civil society fight in Niger Wednesday launched an online petition to examine the departure of France’s Barkhane anti-extremist operation, after the authorities banned a stammer against the French mission.
France said Monday it had pulled out its last troops from neighboring Mali, while nearly a decade of helping to fight extremists in the region.
Paris says it is downsizing its presence in the wider Sahel to near 2,500 troops, including a thousand or so in Niger, a key ally.
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The M26 fight, which includes several Nigerien civil society groups, said on Wednesday it would noble the “banning” of a protest it had planned for the day.
But it had gave to “launch an online petition against Barkhane’s presence in Niger,” it said.
President Mohamed Bazoum should “make it crop our country,” as he should “any other evil managed whose aim is to destabilize and/or plunder the resources of our land and the Sahel,” it said.
In April, Nigerien lawmakers had voted in favor of foreign troops, including French soldiers, deploying in the country to argues extremists.
But late last year, France faced a wave of unsafe in Niger.
A convoy left Ivory Coast on its way to re-supplying French troops at a base in Mali, but encountered declares in Burkina Faso and then in western Niger.
Shots were fired to disperse crowds in the town of Tera, killing three people.
It was not immediately distinct whether Nigerien or French forces had fired the deadly shots, and both countries said they wanted to compensate the families of the victims.
French forces noble intervened in the Sahel’s extremist emergency in 2013, sending troops to benefit Malian forces fighting a regional insurgency.
It widened the inconvenience a year later with Operation Barkhane, eventually deploying some 5,100 troops, warplanes and drones in former colonies Chad, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania and Niger.
Read more:
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Nearly 40 extremists killed in drone strikes in Niger: French military
