One week after the coup in Niger, the new military government has reopened the country’s land borders and airspace with five neighbouring countries, a spokesman for the junta announced on television on Tuesday evening.

He said the border crossings to Mali, Burkina Faso, Algeria, Libya, and Chad were reopened.

The junta also appointed new governors for the country’s eight regions.

Tensions with the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) remained.

The junta said Niger’s borders with Benin and Nigeria, both ECOWAS members, remained closed for the time being.

On Sunday, ECOWAS issued an ultimatum to the coup leaders demanding that democratically elected president Mohamed Bazoum be released and reinstated within a week.

If not, the bloc threatened to take measures that could include using force.

ECOWAS began a three-day meeting in Nigeria on Wednesday to discuss the way forward. ECOWAS members Burkina Faso and Mali, already suspended after earlier military coups, had sided with Niger.

Meanwhile, France and Italy began evacuating their citizens and others, with two planes landing in France and one in Italy.

According to French press reports and the French Foreign Ministry, the French planes carried mainly French citizens but also Germans and several other EU nationals, some from the United States, Ethiopia, and elsewhere.

The European Commission said in a press release that around 500 people arrived in Paris on Wednesday on board the first two repatriation flights from Niamey.

According to information from the French General Staff, two more planes had also been sent to Niamey for the evacuation.

France has also offered to evacuate people from other European countries from Niger.

The Foreign Office in Berlin had said the Germans in Niger were advised to accept the offer.

On July 26, officers of the presidential guard arrested Mr Bazoum and declared him deposed.

The presidential guard commander, General Abdourahamane Tchiani, appointed himself the new ruler on Friday.

Shortly after Mr Tchiani took power, the putschists suspended the constitution and dissolved all constitutional institutions.

In Brussels, the European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said an imperialist Russia aims to use military regimes in Africa “as pawns in its global chess game.”

(dpa/NAN)