Gunmen, presumably not fans of duty-free Toblerones, have descended upon Niger’s largest airport, Diori Hamani International in Niamey, with a severity that suggests they were not merely arguing over lost luggage. The death toll, as of this moment, is 35 souls. Thirty-five people who had plans, dreams, and in at least one case, an overpriced paperback they’d never finish.
Let’s be clear: this was not an air traffic control dispute. This was a carefully orchestrated assault that has turned the tarmac into a map of chaos, with bullet casings for cities and bodies for landmarks. The British Foreign Office, a department that specialises in telling Britons abroad that they should have gone to Skegness instead, has issued the expected: leave. Leave immediately. Do not pass Go, do not collect your inflight peanuts.
Now, I have been to Niamey. It has a certain charm if you like 45-degree heat and the constant belief that your taxi is about to break down (it did). But this is not a tourist hotspot. This is a city that has seen more coup attempts than a chess grandmaster. And yet, here we are, with the world’s most predictable news cycle asking: who did this? Why? Will there be another round of ‘thoughts and prayers’ or a properly drawn red line? Spoiler: it will be the former.
The attack was carried out by what the FT euphemistically calls ‘gunmen’, a term that implies they might be merely disgruntled baggage handlers with poor aim. They were not. This was a military-style operation, the sort that makes you wonder if the airport security was having a collective tea break. The assault began with an explosion at the entrance, after which things went from bad to worse to unspeakable. French forces, because who else is there, have been deployed. France, you see, has a habit of turning up late to these parties, usually when the best loot is gone. But credit where it is due: at least they came. The Americans? The Americans are probably still trying to figure out if Niger is a river or a country.
The British government’s advice is characteristically void of insight: ‘leave now’. The implication being that if you are a British national in Niger, you should already be running, preferably in a zigzag pattern. The Foreign Office has not, of course, offered a dedicated charter jet. You must make your own way, through a country now in a state of emergency, because the free market always provides.
This is the world we live in. An era where airports are not for departures but for massacres. Where governments issue statements that read like they were written by an algorithm, and where journalists like myself must sift through the gore for the irony. There is no irony here. Only 35 dead, a bleeding runway, and a world that will move on within 72 hours when Kate Middleton wears a new hat.
I will be back tomorrow, presumably to type through a gin-and-tonic haze, to report on another collective failure. But for now, let us raise a glass to the forgotten. Not to the gunmen, who are scum. Not to the politicians, who are scum in better suits. But to the 35. May they be remembered longer than the next news cycle.
