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Niger halts plans to deport Arabs
Niger has suspended its plans to deport thousands of ethnic Arab nomads to Chad. The central African country's cabinet decided against carrying out the deportations after neighbouring countries spoke out against the plan, the country's communications minister said on Friday. The government had announced on Tuesday that it would next week begin expelling the nomadic Mahamid Arabs, who sought refuge in Niger from drought and warfare in Chad during the 1980s.
Nigerien President Mamadou Tandja's government has said the operation was purely to tackle illegal immigration and it denied that Arabs were being targeted. The government estimate only around 3,000 Mahamid Arabs live without residence papers in Niger. But community leaders say the nomads number tens of thousands and some local government officials put the figure are high as 150,000. Niger accuses the Mahamid Arabs of possessing illegal firearms and of posing a threat to the security of local communities. It says their camels have been draining water supplies - a serious cause of tension as the arid Sahel region suffers its worst drought on record, leading to increasing conflict between pastoralists and farmers for scarce resources. Hadari said the government in Niamey had sent a delegation to the southeast region of Diffa to meet leaders of the Mahamid community on Friday. Nigerien Arab leaders have welcomed the government's decision to halt the deportations. Nigeriens have to compete with Arab refugees for land and water "We are grateful to the government for cancelling this decision, in order to avoid problems between communities," said Sileyim Ben Hameda, an Arab member of parliament for the Diffa region. Posted by: Fred 2006-10-28 |
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