NIAMEY - The European Union on Friday "strongly" condemned the blocking of French media broadcasts in Niger, where last week's coup sparked protests against the country's former colonial ruler.

"This step is a serious violation of the right to information and freedom of expression.

The EU strongly condemns these violations of fundamental freedoms," EU spokeswoman Nabila Massrali said on Twitter, recently rebranded as X.

A team from the West African regional bloc ECOWAS left Niger without meeting the leader of the junta that seized power in a coup last Sunday, a delegation member said Friday.

The Economic Community of West African States delegation arrived in the Niger capital Niamey on Thursday "but did not spend the night" as scheduled, nor met with coup leader General Abdourahamane Tiani or deposed President Mohamed Bazoum, the team member said.

Elected Niger President Mohamed Bazoum said Thursday that if a coup attempt to depose him is successful, "it will have devastating consequences for our country, our region and the entire world." In a column in The Washington Post, Bazoum called on "the US government and the entire international community to help us restore our constitutional order."

"I write this as a hostage," Bazoum wrote. "Niger is under attack from a military junta... and I am just one of hundreds of citizens who have been arbitrarily and illegally imprisoned." … He warned that Niger's neighbors have increasingly invited in "criminal Russian mercenaries such as the Wagner Group at the expense of their people's rights and dignity."

Niger's junta on Thursday said it was scrapping military pacts made between Niamey and France, following last week's coup.