LONDON: European carriers on Monday reported disruptions and suspended flights across the African continent after Niger’s junta closed its airspace on Sunday.

The junta on Monday braced for a response from the West African regional bloc after ignoring its deadline to reinstate the country’s ousted president or face the threat of military intervention.

The disruption adds to a band of African airspace facing geopolitical disruptions including Libya and Sudan, with some flights facing up to 1,000 kilometres in detours.

“The closure of Niger’s airspace dramatically widens the area over which most commercial flights between Europe and southern Africa cannot fly,” tracking service FlightRadar24 said in a blog post.

West African bloc to meet on Thursday after junta defies deadline

Air France has suspended flights to and from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso and Bamako in Mali until Aug 11, the company said on Monday, with longer flight times expected in the west African region.

A spokesperson added that Air France expected longer flight times from sub-Saharan hub airports and that flights between Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris and Accra in Ghana were set to operate non-stop.

Possible military action

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), spokesperson Emos Lungu said the bloc would hold an extraordinary summit to discuss Niger on Thursday in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, where it has its headquarters.

The 15-nation club has taken a harder stance on the Niger coup, the region’s seventh in three years, than it did on previous ones. Its credibility is at stake because it had said it would tolerate no further such overthrows.

ECOWAS defence chiefs agreed on Friday on a possible military action plan if the detained president, Mohamed Bazoum, was not released and reinstated, although they said operational decisions would be decided by heads of states.

But the bloc’s unity has been broken by a promise from the ruling juntas in Mali and Burkina Faso, both member states, to come to Niger’s defence if needed.

Both countries were sending delegations to Niamey to show solidarity, the Malian army said on social media on Monday, and flight tracking website FlightRadar24 showed a Burkina Faso military plane arriving in Niamey at around 1120 GMT.

A fracture within ECOWAS and escalation of the stand-off with Niger would further destabilise one of the world’s poorest regions, already facing a hunger crisis and insurgency that has killed thousands and displaced millions.

Niger’s uranium and oil reserves and its pivotal role in a war with militant groups in the Sahel region give it economic and strategic importance for the United States, Europe, China and Russia.

African and Western allies have imposed sanctions and cut aid to Niger in attempts to pressure the junta to step down. Germany said on Monday that sanctions were on the table and described the junta’s flight ban as a setback.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, however, said in an interview published on Monday that ECOWAS should extend its deadline for the reinstatement of Bazoum.

Published in Dawn, August 8th, 2023