A military revolt in this Sahara Desert nation spread to the capital on Monday, with mutinous soldiers trying to seize three garrisons in Niamey, the Defense Ministry said. After hours of gunfire, Prime Minister Hama Amadou said the city was under control.
Soldiers in eastern Niger launched the revolt six days ago to demand months of unpaid salaries in what has become the gravest challenge to the government since civilian authority was restored in 1999.
Cabinet convened an emergency session on the crisis.
Early on Monday, some of the members of three army garrisons in Niamey rose up, saying they were acting in sympathy with mutineers in garrisons in the remote east of the country.
Loyalist soldiers and the mutineers battled within the
garrisons, the Defence Ministry said in a statement.
Frightened residents heard more than two hours of gunfire, ending before dawn.
The Defense Ministry said loyalist forces put down the uprising in the capital, had arrested several mutineers, and was searching for others.
There was no immediate word – or sign – of casualties in Niamey.
Citizens left home after a tense night, reporting to work at shops, businesses and government offices as usual.
Presidential guards surrounded the home of President Tandja Mamadou.
Authorities announced Mamadou would address the nation in a broadcast Monday evening.
In eastern Niger, authorities claimed on Sunday to have retaken the garrison city of Diffa where the uprising began.
But heavily armed mutineers were reported still in control of two other military posts in the east, at N’guigmi and N’gourti.
They were believed to outnumber loyalist soldiers sent from the capital to crush the revolt in the east.
The rebel soldiers who had fled Diffa were reported to have released two hostages, the local governor and a civilian, but to have take a parliament member and three soldiers with them as they escaped.
Impoverished Niger has weathered two coups in the last decade and a five-year insurgency by Tuareg nomads that ended in 1995.
Mamadou won democratic elections in 1999, replacing Colonel Daouda Malam Wanke, who briefly led the country following the assassination the same year of former President Ibrahim Mainassara Bare. – Sapa-AP