Firing continued intermittently with the military blocking all roads leading to the palace. Government helicopters were circling the city and fired in the afternoon, according to residents.
"I left my bookstore rather than risk getting hit by stray fire," Ismael Issaka told IRIN from his home in
Elsewhere in the country, traffic and markets continued uninterrupted.
Military music
Former government information minister, Mariama Gamatié, told IRIN that state television and radio were still active as of 3pm. "We hear gunshots still, but if there has been a coup attempt and someone has taken over, the first thing that happens in Africa is that news goes off the air." Shortly before 6pm local time, military music replaced news broadcasts on national radio.
Gamatié was the information minister at the time of the assassination of President Ibrahim Baré Mainassara in 1999 and is now a civil society member contesting President Tandja’s rule. "We are paying the price for President Tandja’s power grab…We cannot afford his ego. We are in the middle of a famine. No one wants to use that word here because of the controversy in 2005. It is not a hunger crisis as government operators may call it. It is a famine."
Admissions of malnourished children to feeding centers were 60 percent higher in January than at the same time last year, according to the
Source: Allafrica