Madar (Niamey) - Human Rights Watch has urged Niger's authorities to urgently disclose the whereabouts of journalist Moussa Kaka, ensure his safety and release him unless he is charged with a valid criminal offence, saying he has been a victim of enforced disappearance for two months, in a statement published on Thursday, 29 October 2026.
According to the rights group, Kaka, director-general of the private Radio Television Saraounia and a former RFI correspondent, left his office in Niamey on 31 August 2026 to go home but never arrived. His family and colleagues were left for weeks without information.
On 25 September, at Niger's Universal Periodic Review in Geneva, Justice Minister Alio Daouda acknowledged that Kaka was being detained for an alleged "offence" and would "answer before the courts", without giving details of the accusation or his place of detention, HRW said.
Ilaria Allegrozzi, HRW's senior Sahel researcher, said that two months after Kaka vanished the authorities had yet to reveal his location or explain his detention, and called on them to account for him immediately and free him if he has not been fairly charged.
His colleagues fear his disappearance is linked to the arrests that followed an attempted military coup in Niamey on 29 August, the group said. Kaka spent 379 days in prison in 2007-2008 and was arrested in October 2025 with five other journalists over an announced press briefing on a government fund for the security forces, before being released.
