The military regimes in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger have announced their immediate withdrawal from the Economic Community of West African States.<\/p>\n
The leaders of the three Sahel nations on Sunday issued a statement saying it was a \u201csovereign decision\u201d to leave the ECOWAS \u201cwithout delay\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n Struggling with jihadist violence and poverty, the regimes have had tense ties with ECOWAS since coups took place in Niger last July, Burkina Faso in 2022 and Mali in 2020.<\/span><\/p>\n All three were suspended from ECOWAS, with Niger and Mali facing heavy sanctions.<\/span><\/p>\n They have hardened their positions in recent months and joined forces in an \u201cAlliance of Sahel States\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n A French military withdrawal from the Sahel \u2014 the region along the Sahara desert across Africa \u2014 has heightened concerns over the conflicts spreading southward to the Gulf of Guinea states Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Ivory Coast.<\/span><\/p>\n The prime minister appointed by Niger\u2019s military regime on Thursday blasted ECOWAS for \u201cbad faith\u201d after the bloc largely shunned a planned meeting in Niamey.<\/span><\/p>\n Niger had hoped for an opportunity to talk through differences with fellow states of ECOWAS, which has cold-shouldered Niamey, imposing heavy economic and financial sanctions following the military coup that overthrew elected president Mohamed Bazoum.<\/span><\/p>\n AFP<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The military regimes in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger have announced their immediate withdrawal from the Economic Community of West African States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17569,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2983,1400,8405,6160,4341],"class_list":["post-17568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-burkina-faso","tag-ecowas","tag-mali","tag-niger","tag-suspension"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17568"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17568"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17570,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17568\/revisions\/17570"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}