DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Three nations in Africa's Sahel region announced Sunday they were leaving the region's main political and economic bloc, deepening the rift between those countries' military juntas and other states in West Africa.
Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso issued a joint statement accusing the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) of kowtowing to “foreign powers” and said their withdrawal from the bloc was effective immediately.
Colonel Amadou Abdramane, spokesman for the Nigerian junta, read from the statement in a televised address. He said ECOWAS had turned away from “the ideals of its founding fathers” and failed to support the three countries hit by Islamist insurgencies in their “existential fight against terrorism and insecurity”.
The three countries signed a mutual defense pact in September. But Sunday's announcement marked an escalation in tensions that rose sharply last year after a military coup in Niger – the last of the three countries to lose its democratic government.
The first was Mali, where mutinous soldiers seized power in 2020 and again in 2021 when a military officer ousted the original coup leader. Neighboring Burkina Faso followed a similar pattern with two military coups in 2022.
The July coup in Niger – a key security partner of the West – came as a shock to many in the region and around the world and was sharply rebuked by ECOWAS, which imposed sanctions and later threatened an invasion to reinstate the elected president .
Sunday's statement criticized ECOWAS for the sanctions, which the juntas called “illegitimate, inhumane and irresponsible.” The trade restrictions, the statement said, had “further weakened a population already harmed by years of violence.”
Extremist attacks are escalating in Niger after a coup toppled an American ally