Niger suspends BBC for ‘spreading false news’ after covering attack

The authorities in Niger have suspended the BBC for three months over the channel’s coverage of an extremist attack that is believed to have killed dozens of Nigerien soldiers and civilians, the authorities said on Thursday.

‘The BBC broadcasts false information aimed at destabilising society and undermining the morale of troops’, Communication Minister Raliou Sidi Mohamed said in letters sent to radio stations that rebroadcast BBC content. Mr Mohamed asked the stations to suspend BBC programmes ‘with immediate effect’. The BBC said it had no comment on the suspension.

The BBC’s popular programmes, including those in Hausa – the most widely spoken language in Niger – are broadcast in the central African country through local radio partners to reach a wide audience across the region.

The British broadcaster reported on its Hausa website on Wednesday that gunmen had killed more than 90 Nigerien soldiers and more than 40 civilians in two villages near the border with Burkina Faso.

French broadcaster Radio France International (RFI) also reported the attack, which it described as jihadist, and cited the same death toll.

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The Niger authorities denied that an attack had taken place in the region in a statement read out on state television, and said they would bring a complaint against RFI for ‘incitement to genocide’.Along with its neighbours Burkina Faso and Mali, Niger has been battling an insurgency led by jihadist groups, some of them allied to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group, for more than a decade. Following military coups in all three countries in recent years, the ruling juntas have expelled French forces and turned to Russian mercenary units for security assistance.