[ad_1]
Seven years after the first Boko Haram attacks in south-eastern Niger, residents of the town of Diffa do not even dare to pronounce the name of the group.
Residents live under siege, frightened and grappling with the economic impact of the Islamist threat.
For fear of reprisals, we speak of “insecurity”, “problems” or “current situation”.
The fear is well founded, according to a security source who claims that supporters of Boko Haram in the city are passing information to the group.
Among the poorest countries in the world, Niger, which holds presidential elections on Sunday, faces jihadist groups from the Sahel to the west and Boko Haram to the east.
“I don’t have 1,000 CFA francs (1.5 euros) in my pocket. I have been unemployed for four years, ”explains Abdou Maman, 46, who has two wives and eight dependent children.
“I’m doing the best that I can. Sometimes I do a little business worth 3000 or 5000 CFA francs. Sometimes I do nothing and when you do nothing, you don’t eat,” he adds.
Over the past four years, the situation in the region has gone from bad to worse.
The inhabitants of Diffa live under curfew, with a permanent military presence, in fear of attacks – there were four in May – or suicide bombings, as in 2018.
Earlier in December, an attack on Timur, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Diffa, left 34 people dead.
The region has 300,000 Nigerian refugees and internally displaced persons from Niger.
Today, no one is really able to give an estimate of the city’s population. In 2011, it had 50,000 inhabitants, a number that could have more than doubled in recent years.
“The lack of security has many consequences. It leads to job losses, a high cost of living… ”, adds Abdou Maman.
“Fishing, agriculture, trade. All of this is not going well (because of Islamist groups extorting and killing those involved in Diffa and the Lake Chad region).”
Petty trade with Nigeria is also no longer functioning due to the border closure.
“We are very scared”
“With the curfew, small street traders must stop at 22:00. Families live in sheds, the displaced but also some people who have lost their jobs,” he adds, accusing the leaders of ” bad governance “.
“Because of this lack of security, getting money is very difficult. Before, when there was peace, things worked very well, ”says a woman who gave her name to Zenabou, whose husband of the farm worker is blind and can no longer work.
She has six children to look after and travels up to 20 kilometers from home every day to sell condiments on a mat on the ground.
“We are having trouble repaying the credit. We eat with what we earn, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, ”she says.
“It used to be expensive, but now the price of everything has gone up because of the lack of security,” she says.
“But above all, we are very scared. Often we hear gunshots. It comes from all sides. We have to stay at home.”
Some, however, manage to find a way to survive, such as the town’s small traders or the countless yellow and black taxis-tricycles that weave their way between carts and donkeys in the streets.
“There are more people in the city, therefore more customers,” explains Abdalla Maman, a three-wheel taxi driver.
He nevertheless deplores the cost of contraband gasoline which arrives illegally from Nigeria to Diffa where the majority of transactions are made in naira, the currency of Nigeria, and not in CFA francs, the local currency in Niger.
“Before the gasoline arrived in huge tankers. Now that the border is closed, it is the small carriers who transport it in cans, bypassing the border post.”
Gasoline rose between 450 and 650 francs in four years, he said. But “business is going well”.
The authorities, meanwhile, believe they are winning “the war” against Boko Haram and former minister Mohamed Bazoum, favorite in the presidential elections, even promised that the refugees and internally displaced persons would be sent home before the end of 2021.
Source link
