Niger : Recruitment Of Ex-soldiers Launched

The Republic of Niger has launched a recruitment operation for retired soldiers and gendarmes called the “Military Reserve”. The objective of the recruitment is to better contain the attacks of the jihadists on the five fronts that surround the country. The first 1,000 recruits that began on Monday, December 12, 2022 will support the soldiers already on the ground fighting against the jihadists’ violence since 2015 in several parts of the country. They will not go directly to the front, but will be expected to secure important sites such as those of development projects, a military source told AFP in Niamey. 
This is the first time that Niger has launched such an operation to better fight the jihadists. The recruitment mainly concerns former soldiers and gendarmes who retired between 2017 and 2022. “We must relieve the soldiers’ active in the field of war," said the Director of the Office for Veterans, Colonel-Major Abdoulaye Mounkaila. According to him, “To relieve the Defense and Security Forces (FDS) who are constantly on the ground, the Ministry of Defense felt that former soldiers and gendarmes should be called up. The process of the military reserve has been underway since 2010”, added the colonel-major on State television.
The population of Niger just like those of other African countries in the Sahel region, have for the past years been fighting the jihadist groups in several parts of the country. The west, close to Mali and Burkina Faso where Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS) group are...