Two days before the newly President-elect Mohamed Bazoum is due to be sworn into office Niger’s security forces early Wednesday thwarted an attempted military coup in the presidential palace.
Report by Aljazeera says that several people were arrested and others are being sought.
The report says that the assailants, who were from a close air base, fled after the presidential guard met their attack with heavy shelling and gunfire.
The Presidential Guard was said to have retaliated, preventing the group of soldiers from approaching the presidential palace.
In a chat with the media government’s spokesman Abdourahamane Zakaria confirmed the coup, he however, revealed that calm had returned to the country.
“The government condemns this cowardly and retrogressive act that aims to endanger democracy and the rule of law to which our country is resolutely committed,” government Spokesman Abdourahamane Zakaria said.
The West African country has been experiencing growing attacks by armed groups, while political tension had escalated following Bazoum’s victory in a February presidential election runoff.
The situation has further deteriorated after former president, Mahamane Ousmane, lost in the runoff and rejected the election results, saying that they had been manipulated.
