Agencies
Three West African countries run by military juntas will be launching a new biometric passports "in the coming days” as part of their withdrawal from the wider regional bloc Ecowas.
Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, whose military leaders took over power in series of coups between 2020 and 2023, announced their plan to leave the bloc in January.
"In the coming days, a new biometric passport of the [alliance] will be put into circulation with the aim of harmonising travel documents in our common area,” Malian junta leader Col Assimi Goïta said in a televised address on late on Sunday.
Col Goïta, who is the acting president of the Sahel alliance, spoke a day before the military governments were due to mark the first anniversary since they made a decision to create their own alliance. Burkina Faso had earlier revealed its decision to launch a new biometric passport without the Ecowas logo. The latest announcement comes as Ecowas is engaged in efforts to get the three Sahel nations to return to the bloc.