Following a rebel movement’s claim of responsibility for the incident, Niger’s military authorities revealed that an oil pipeline transporting crude oil to neighboring Benin had been sabotaged. The movement wants the president of Niger released.
“Malicious individuals sabotaged part of the pipeline in the Tesker department on the night of June 16–17,” public television Tele Sahel reported on Friday night.
“We have already gathered information and clues on the alleged perpetrators” and “all those who contributed will be arrested and judged in accordance with their terrorist act,” said the governor of Zinder region, Colonel Issoufou Labo, who went to the scene of the attack.
“We know which group is the author of the act (which it has also) claimed,” said public prosecutor Ousmane Baydo.
In an apparent message to Niger’s military generals, the rebel Patriotic Liberation Front (FPL), which is fighting for president Mohamed Bazoum’s release, claimed to have targeted the pipeline on Monday.
Following the military takeover of Bazoum on July 26, 2023, the FPL was established in August of that same year. He has been detained ever since at the presidential palace in the nation’s capital, Niamey.
Mahamoud Sallah, the head of the FPL, has threatened to strike oil sites and called for the release of the president who was elected democratically.
In addition, he has demanded that the pipeline’s operators, the state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation and WAPCO, stop subsidizing the army government in Niger.
According to Tele Sahel, the attack damaged the pipeline and caused a crude oil leak. Images from the scene showed an oil spill that extended more than 370 meters (1,200 feet) into the bush.
The pipeline is necessary for landlocked Niger to export its crude from Seme-Kpodji, Benin’s Atlantic port.
In addition to the rebels, other violent groups also pose a threat to the pipeline.
According to the army, six Nigerien soldiers serving as a security detail were slain on June 12 in the first-ever attack on the pipeline by “armed bandits” in the south.
The 1,240-mile (1,200-kilometer) pipeline is essential to the economy of Benin and Nigerien, but it has also become the focus of a diplomatic dispute between the two neighbors in West Africa, whose ties have been strained since the coup.
