Niger suspends BBC for 'spreading false news' after covering attack

Niger's authorities suspended the BBC for three months over the broadcaster's coverage of an extremist attack that allegedly killed dozens of Nigerien soldiers and civilians, authorities said Thursday.

“BBC broadcasts false information aimed at destabilizing social calm and undermining the troops' morale,” communications minister Raliou Sidi Mohamed said in letters to radio stations that rebroadcast BBC content. Mohamed asked the stations to suspend BBC's programs “with immediate effect.”

The BBC said it had no comment on the suspension.

Popular BBC programs, including those in Hausa — the most-spoken language in Niger — are broadcast in the Central African country through local radio partners to reach a large audience across the region.

The British broadcaster had reported on its website in Hausa 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.

The French broadcaster Radio France International, also known as RFI, also reported on the attack, calling it a jihadi attack and citing the same death toll.

Niger's authorities denied that an attack happened in the area in a statement read on state television and said it would file a complain against RFI for “incitement to genocide.”

Niger, along with its neighbors Burkina Faso and Mali, has for over a decade battled an insurgency fought by jihadi groups, including some allied with al-Qaida and the Islamic State group. Following military coups in all three nations in recent years, the ruling juntas have expelled French forces and turned to Russia’s mercenary units for security assistance.