Call for expulsion of Arabs in Niger

By Reuters, Niamey
29 October 2006, 18:00 PM
Hundreds of people took to the streets in southeastern Niger on Saturday to protest against the government's decision to halt the deportation of thousands of Mahamid Arabs back to Chad.

Niger's cabinet on Friday announced it was suspending the deportation of the nomadic Arabs, who fled warfare and drought in neighbouring Chad during the 1980s, and taking a month to find alternative measures to defuse tensions in the southeast region of Diffa.