Niger's military leaders have refused to release the family of the detained president in a proposed goodwill gesture, according to the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Fears have been mounting for the health of President Mohamed Bazoum as well as his wife and 20-year-old son since the military seized power and took them captive on July 26.
In a phone call with Niger's former president Mahamadou Issoufou, a fellow Western ally whom Bazoum served, Blinken "expressed his grave concern at the continued unlawful detention under deteriorating conditions of President Bazoum and his family."
Blinken "shared that he is particularly dismayed by the refusal of those who seized power in Niger to release Bazoum's family members as a demonstration of goodwill," a State Department statement said on Friday.
'Killing him'
“They are killing him,” Niger's ambassador to the US, Mamadou Kiari Liman-Tinguiri, told The Associated Press news agency.
He is a close associate who maintains daily calls with the detained leader. The two have been colleagues for three decades, since the now 63-year-old president was a young philosophy instructor, a teacher’s union leader, and a democracy advocate noted for his eloquence.
“The plan of the head of the junta is to starve him to death," Liman-Tinguiri told the AP.
“This is inhuman, and the world should not tolerate that,” the ambassador said. “It cannot be tolerated in 2023.”
Deprived food
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that Bazoum and his family have been deprived of food, electricity and medical care for several days.
UN rights chief Volker Turk said Bazoum's reported detention conditions "could amount to inhuman and degrading treatment, in violation of international human rights law."
