Despite security assurances, mines keep aid agencies out of north

The mayor of a remote city in lawless northern Niger last week appealed for help with severe hunger and flood-related damage, but humanitarians are struggling to respond because mines recently laid by anti-government fighters have made the city unreachable.

“We got a request from the mayor who said they have a humanitarian crisis due to floods and the security situation which has cut the city off,” said International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) spokesperson Marcel Izard. “There are a number of people needing assistance and food,” he said.

But Iferouane, 1,000km northeast of the capital Niamey, is at the heart of a remote area where the Nigerien army and some foreign mining companies have been targeted by an armed group called the National Movement for Justice (MNJ) since February this year.

The army and MNJ have given the ICRC security guarantees and offered to guide its staff around the mined areas, but Izard said aid still will not get through.

“We are not concerned about either the rebels or the army, only the antipersonnel and antitank mines. We have already had security guarantees from both sides but the mines make it very unsafe to go because the floods mean the mines could have shifted, even if we are told exactly where they were laid,” Izard explained.

Although the Nigerien government has refused all the MNJ’s requests for negotiations, and accused the group of harbouring drug smugglers and “bandits” who profit from increased lawlessness in the region, it has deployed a significant number of troops in the region and purchased attack helicopters for use there.

Last week, tens of thousands of supporters of President Mamadou Tandja’s political party took to the streets in the capital Niamey to demand an end to the rebel attacks, which demonstrators said are diverting resources from development in the world’s poorest country.

The MNJ says it is campaigning for more autonomy for one of Niger’s ethnic groups, the Touareg, and improved use of the country’s burgeoning revenues from natural resources, which are predominantly found in the north.

nr/np