Niger army confirmed: Lost and other attacks on population In recent days, the situation in northern Niger in the confrontation between the MNJ (Mouvement pour la Justice of Nigeria of) and the Army of the Niger (FAN) worsened significantly.
was first on 20 November 2007 killing of two civilians near the village of Atri in the Air region, reported by the Nigerien army, were the victims Abarchi Adam (70 years) and Ghoumour Assaleh (25 years). Those killed were civilians, according to the MNJ and were shot for no reason.
On 23 November 2007 warned the MNJ in the region of Arlit active uranium mining company AREVA about to make further shipments through the region inhabited by the Tuareg. It stressed the MNJ that all truck transport on the route of Arlit and Akouta towards the Atlantic coast, where the uranium is loaded for shipment to France to ships taking place at your own risk.
At the same time, 23 November 2007, in the Agadez region, another four civilians randomly shot , including a religious leader.
The bodies of the killed were (about 25 km from Agadez) near the village Tchintibizguinte found in a common grave where they had been buried without any precaution. The victims showed gunshot wounds in the ears, on the forehead and at heart level.
are also in Agadez, about 500 people in the market of the Regional Union of the Vegetable Cooperative of Agadez (Regional Union of Cooperatives Maraîchère d'Agadez) and was arrested at a market, of which only about 250 in the evening on liberty was, and the whereabouts of the other person, according to MNJ Report unclear.
military confrontation
Since 25 November, intensified military hostilities between the MNJ and the Nigerien army. The government in Niamey had sent a convoy of hundreds of military vehicles heading north to attack the positions of the MNJ.
Some of the participating officers during the rebellion of 1990 - part 95 in the Nigerien troops and the massacre of Tchintabaraden in which several hundreds of Tuareg civilian had been killed by the army.
The thrust of the Nigerien army in the north by the MNJ stopped at several places. It was the Nigerien army involved in heavy fighting, losing in which these soldiers, vehicles, weapons and ammunition.
A major battle took place near the village of Aweyderer. According to the MNJ has fragmented this confrontation, the column of the Nigerien army in two and brought to a halt their advance. According to the MNJ were on the side of the Nigerien army 14 dead and 17 wounded and four vehicles destroyed.
On 29 November MNJ reported that the advance is the Nigerien army to the MNJ bases with about 300 vehicles failed and the army withdrew to Arlit to treat their wounded.
Another column of the army could resort to Iferouane penetrate, where a number of soldiers had endured in an army barracks; Iferouane was during the last few weeks have been almost completely isolated from the outside world.
According to various witnesses on the spot moved to the Nigerien army currently out to shoot at more or less safe distance, the mountain regions of the Air Mountains. This tactic calls in doubt, more civilian casualties than they would be promising military.
background
The uranium, which is operated by the French company for 30 years on a large scale in the region of Arlit, leads to a serious radioactive contamination of Water, flora and fauna, from air and food and related diseases among the local population.
In radiological examinations were as significant concentrations of uranium in drinking water and high radioactivity was detected - the pressures to achieve the 7 to 110-times the limits set by the World Health Organization WHO limit (!). Overall
been previously mined uranium in Niger, worth many millions of euros, the government budget is financed from Niger to 30% of the revenue from uranium mining.
The local population benefits from these funds have little or not at all, but is faced with major environmental and health risks, which People are obviously willing to bear no longer.
Other factors of the conflict is ongoing, ethnic-based discrimination, which provides for the Tuareg minority in Niger subjected by the dominant Hausa population. This systematic discrimination is reflected in the contract of employment, medical care, in school funding, in the political integration, as well as low in all other areas of the social fabric of the Republic of Niger: Tuareg few find a job in the city to get the chance for higher education or admission to a high political office.
addition the government invests in the economic majority of Tuareg populated, rural north neither local nor in education or health projects.
This is in contradiction to the fact that the government of Niger in the Peace Treaty, which was completed in 1995 with the Tuareg in Burkina Faso, promised to solve these problems. Fifteen years later, however, has changed in the marginalization of the Tuareg changed, while the other hand, since the revenue from uranium mining in the regions inhabited by the Tuareg pastoral areas have increased by many times.
should not be forgotten that indirect responsibility, which the Western countries as uranium buyers (And users of "green" nuclear energy in their own country) over the way who, as the raw material is extracted in the mining countries .
