Here are five things to know about Niger in West Africa, where guards turned on President Mohamed Bazoum this week.
Upheaval: Demonstrators gather to protest the detention of Niger’s President Mohamed Bazoum by the Presidential Guard in Niamey on 26 July. Photo: AFP/Getty Imagesere are five things to know about Niger in West Africa, where guards turned on President Mohamed Bazoum this week.Half of its 26.2 million people live in poverty, fuelled in part by the world’s highest birth rate of 6.8 children per woman in 2021.
Niger has suffered from chronic political volatility since gaining independence from France in 1960. It has seen four coups in its history, most recently a February 2010 putsch which toppled then president Mamadou Tandja. Along with its Sahel neighbours Mali and Burkina Faso, Niger is struggling with a jihadist insurgency that began in Mali in 2012 and spread across the region’s highly porous borders.
Niger has some of the world’s biggest deposits of uranium, a key ingredient in the nuclear industry.
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