West African bloc postpones meeting addressing Niger crisis

West African leaders have deferred a crisis meeting on dealing with the coup in Niger after approving the deployment of a "standby force to restore constitutional order" as soon as possible.

Chiefs of staff from member states of the West African bloc were scheduled to attend a meeting on Saturday in the Ghanaian capital Accra but later indefinitely suspended it for "technical reasons".

Sources said the meeting was originally set up to inform the organisation's leaders about "the best options" for activating and deploying the standby force.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) regional bloc had approved a military force to reinstate elected President Mohamed Bazoum, who was ousted by members of his guard on July 26.

"The military option seriously envisaged by ECOWAS is not a war against Niger and its people but a police operation against hostage takers and their accomplices," Niger's Foreign Minister Hassoumi Massaoudou said on Saturday.

ECOWAS is determined to stop the sixth military takeover in the region in just three years and has severed financial transactions and electricity supplies and closed borders with landlocked Niger, blocking much-needed imports to one of the world's poorest countries.

Fears for Bazoum

President Mohamed Bazoum meanwhile sits confined with his family in an unlit basement of his presidential compound, cut off from resupplies of food and from electricity and cooking gas by the junta that overthrew him, Niger's ambassador to the United States told The Associated Press.

“The plan of the head of the junta is to starve him to death," Mamadou Kiari Liman-Tinguiri, a close associate who maintains daily calls with the detained leader, told the AP in one of his first interviews since mutinous troops allegedly cut off food deliveries to the president, his wife and his 20-year-old son almost a week ago.

The European Union and the African Union joined others in sounding the alarm for Bazoum on Friday.

UN rights chief Volker Turk said Bazoum's reported detention conditions "could amount to inhuman and degrading treatment, in violation of international human rights law".

Top US diplomat Antony Blinken said he was "dismayed" by the military's refusal to release Bazoum's family as a "demonstration of goodwill".

A source close to Bazoum said: "He's OK, but the conditions are very difficult". The coup leaders had threatened to assault him in the event of military intervention.

Human Rights Watch said it had spoken to Bazoum earlier this week. The 63-year-old described the treatment of himself and his family as "inhuman and cruel", HRW said.

"I'm not allowed to receive my family members (or) my friends who have been bringing food and other supplies to us," the group quoted him as saying.

"My son is sick, has a serious heart condition, and needs to see a doctor," he was quoted as saying. "They've refused to let him get medical treatment."

Under pressure to stem a cascade of coups among its members, ECOWAS had previously issued a seven-day ultimatum to the coup leaders to return Bazoum to power.

But the generals defied the deadline, which expired on Sunday without any action being taken.

The coup leaders have since named a new government, which met for the first time on Friday.