Niger orders expulsion of Arabs
The government of Niger has ordered the expulsion of 150,000 Arab refugees from Chad and neighbouring countries who have lived there for decades.
Interior Minister Mounkaila Modi said the decision was taken because many of the refugees are livestock herders whose camels are destroying arid Niger’s fragile ecosystem – particularly water sources in short supply.
Modi also alleged many of the nomads were armed with guns and threatened local inhabitants.
Modi said the order would apply to around 150,000 Arabs in Niger from countries in the region, including Algeria, Libya and Chad.
Many of the Arabs are nomads known as “Mohamides” who fled past conflicts in Chad decades before. Many are citizens of Niger and hold top positions in the army and government.
“We have decided, starting today, to expel these nomadic Arab ’Mohamides’ to their home countries,” Modi said. “These foreigners have shown no respect to the rights of the natives and they're putting pressure on pastures in this region … we can no longer accept seeing our ecosystem degraded by foreigners.”
The BBC reported earlier that the governor of Diffa state in eastern Niger had issued the order.
Several residents in eastern Niger said that security forces there were telling refugees to leave, but were not yet forcing them to.
There were no reports of any refugees crossing the border.
Modi said the expulsions would take place “with respect to human rights”.
The news comes as Chad’s government said rebels there briefly seized a town in the east of the country and fears grew of a rebel attack on the capital, N’djamena. A day earlier, rebels attacked two eastern Chadian towns toward the border with Sudan.
Chadian rebels, who include army deserters and some relatives of Chad President Idriss Deby, have engaged the army in sporadic clashes since October 2005.
Deby, who first took power at the head of his own rebel army in 1990 after decades of sporadic fighting, won elections in May that the main opposition parties boycotted because they claimed they had been rigged.
Niger has a population of about 12 million and lies on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. The arid nation has seen a succession of coups and elections since independence from France in 1960 and is regularly rated among the world’s five poorest countries.
