Military leaders from the ECOWAS bloc are meeting Thursday in Ghana. They have previously ordered the creation of a ‘standby force to restore constitutional order’ in Niger.

West African military chiefs are set to meet Thursday, August 17, in Ghana to coordinate a possible intervention aimed at reversing the recent coup in Niger. Alarmed by a cascade of takeovers in the region, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has decided to create a “standby force to restore constitutional order” in Niger.

The meeting of the top brass on Thursday and Friday comes after fresh violence in the insurgent-hit country, with jihadists killing at least 17 soldiers in an ambush. An army detachment was “the victim of a terrorist ambush near the town of Koutougou” in the Tillaberi region near Burkina Faso on Tuesday, Niger’s defence ministry said. Twenty more soldiers were wounded, six seriously, in the heaviest losses since the July 26 coup.

ECOWAS issued a statement Tuesday “strongly condemning” the latest attack, urging the military “to restore constitutional order in Niger to be able to focus (its) attention on security… weaker since the attempted coup d’etat.” Talks have taken place this week in Addis Ababa among ECOWAS and Niger representatives under the aegis of the African Union.

The United States said Wednesday that a new ambassador would soon head to Niger to help lead diplomacy aimed at reversing the coup. Kathleen FitzGibbon, a career diplomat with extensive experience in Africa, will travel to Niamey despite the ordered departure of the embassy’s non-emergency staff.

On Tuesday, Niger’s military-appointed civilian prime minister, Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, made an unannounced visit to neighbouring Chad – a key nation in the unstable Sahel but not a member of ECOWAS. He met President Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, offering what he described as a message of “good neighbourliness and good fraternity” from the head of Niger’s regime.

“We are in a process of transition, we discussed the ins and outs and reiterated our availability to remain open and talk with all parties, but insist on our country’s independence,” Zeine said.

ECOWAS has applied a raft of trade and financial sanctions while France, Germany and the United States have suspended their aid programmes. The measures are being applied to one of the poorest countries in the world, which regularly ranks bottom of the UN’s Human Development Index.

The United Nations warned Wednesday that the crisis could significantly worsen food insecurity in the impoverished country, urging humanitarian exemptions to sanctions and border closures to avert catastrophe.