Niger on Thursday announced it was suspending BBC radio for three months, with the British broadcaster joining the growing list of Western media sanctioned by military juntas in the Sahel.
The ban on the BBC – accused of airing “erroneous information likely to destabilise social peace and undermine the morale of the troops” fighting jihadists – will come into force “with immediate effect” countrywide, the leadership said.
Popular BBC programmes including ones in the Hausa language are broadcast in Niger via local radio partners.
Since seizing power in a July 2023 coup, the military government has banned several Western media outlets.
Besides the BBC, two French broadcasters, Radio France Internationale (RFI) and France 24, have been banned there since August 2023.
On Thursday evening, the junta also said it was “filing a complaint” against RFI.
No programme in particular was mentioned in the decisions taken concerning the BBC and RFI.
But on Wednesday both broadcasters reported that jihadists had killed 90 soldiers and upwards of 40 civilians in Chatoumane, in the western Tera region bordering Burkina Faso teeming with armed fighters.
Although AFP was unable to verify those numbers from an independent local source, a Western security source told AFP that 90 to 100 people died in Tuesday’s attack.
‘Baseless assertions’
But on Wednesday Niger’s junta denied the attack happened, describing reports of the atrocity as “baseless assertions” and a “campaign of intoxication”.
For years Niger – along with its two neighbours Burkina Faso and Mali – has been plagued by jihadist violence.
The frontier lands straddling the three states – where Tuesday’s attack is said to have taken place – have long been a hideout for jihadists linked to the Islamic State group and Al-Qaeda.
All three of those Sahel countries have experienced military coups in recent years, and Niger’s fellow juntas have likewise suspended foreign media outlets.
With the three turning their backs on former colonial ruler France, many French media outlets have been suspended on accusations of being propaganda mouthpieces for Paris.
Other voices deemed critical of the military authorities have been silenced.
All three juntas have turned towards Russia for their security needs and expelled French troops stationed in the Sahel to fight against jihadists.
Niger’s army occasionally releases official reports on some of the jihadists’ attacks, which it says are carried out by “terrorists”.
On Wednesday it announced the death of 10 soldiers in an attack the previous day in the west of the country.
Near the borders with Chad, Cameroon and Nigeria, Niger’s far southeast also faces attacks from Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWAP) group.
Jihadist attacks have killed at least 1,500 civilians and troops in Niger in the past year, according to conflict monitoring group ACLED – more than double the 650 killed from July 2022 to July 2023.
