MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th July, 2023) The European Union will evaluate the situation in Niger, a Western African country where the president appears to have been forced out by a coup, to decide whether to evacuate the EU capacity building mission, a foreign policy spokeswoman said Thursday.
"The situation is still not clear in the country at the moment. I would not want to speculate at this early stage. It is too soon to answer that question, but we will of course evaluate all that in the light of the evolution of the situation in the country," Nabila Massrali told a midday briefing in Brussels.
The EUCAP Sahel Niger mission is part of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) mechanism, which allows the EU to deploy missions abroad for peacekeeping and conflict prevention. EUCAP helped train Niger's internal security officials.
Members of the Nigerien presidential guard blocked President Mohamed Bazoum inside his residence in the capital Niamey, closed borders and imposed a nationwide curfew on Wednesday. They said in a televised address that the president had been deposed. Bazoum took to social media on Thursday to defy the coup leaders and call on the nation to defend its hard-won democratic gains. The Nigerien armed forces backed the rebels.
The EU spokeswoman said the EU was following with great concern events in Niger following the mutiny and reaffirmed the bloc's full support to the embattled president. Bazoum has been in charge since 2021 after winning the presidential election and surviving a failed coup attempt.
