Amnesty International Report 2006 - Niger

Niger suffered devastating food shortages because of repeated cycles of droughts and an invasion of desert locusts in 2004. Several leaders of civil society were arbitrarily detained.

Famine and belated international response

Serious food shortages were compounded by years of drought and an invasion of desert locusts in 2004, the worst in more than a decade, which wiped out much of the country's cereal production. Although several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) had been warning about the risk of famine in Niger since late 2004, international donors, including the UN and the European Union, did not react quickly to calls for urgent food aid. In June, thousands of people demonstrated in the capital, Niamey, to demand the distribution of free rations. Their demand was refused by the authorities who said that they could not distribute for free the little food they had. In July, following renewed calls from NGOs, the international community, including UN agencies, began to send emergency food aid, which slightly improved the situation.

The UN estimated that the famine put in danger the lives of 3.5 million of Niger's 12 million inhabitants. No official figures were released for how many people died as a result of the food shortages. The famine in Niger had a knock-on effect in neighbouring countries: in Benin and Nigeria, rising prices and a plague of crop-eating birds threatened food supplies, and in Burkina Faso and Mali food shortages were reported.

Arbitrary arrests

Leaders of civil society organizations were arbitrarily detained.

• In March, five leaders of the anti-poverty Fairness/Equality Coalition against the High Cost of Living were arrested. They included Kassoum Issa, Secretary of the national teachers' trade union, Nouhou Arzika, Moustapha Kadi, Morou Amadou and journalist Moussa Tchangari. All five were charged with "plotting against state security" after the coalition called for a general strike against a new tax on basic goods such as flour and milk. They were provisionally released 10 days later and by the end of the year no further legal action against them was known to have been taken.

• In May, Ilguilas Weila, President of the anti-slavery organization Timidria, and five other people working with him were arrested and charged with "attempted fraud". They were accused of seeking to defraud international lenders by soliciting funds to organize a ceremony marking the liberation of slaves. The six men were provisionally released in June and by the end of the year no further legal action was known to have been taken against them. The arrests took place against a background of attempts by the authorities to muzzle Timidria and prevent it from denouncing slavery, a practice punishable in law in Niger since 2003.