Niger's leader held without adequate food and water, daughter reveals

Niger's overthrown leader and his family are being held under inhumane conditions by their military captors, who have cut off the electricity to the presidential residence, leaving them to rapidly lose weight while food rots in the fridge, the president's daughter has told the Guardian.

- Zeinab Mohammed Salih

Zazia Bazoum, who was on holiday in France when Mohamed Bazoum was detained by his own presidential guard last month, said she is in near daily phone contact with her father, mother and brother, who she says are living without clean water and relying on supplies of rice and pasta, although their gas oven is running out of fuel.

"The situation of my family is very difficult currently," she said by phone from Paris. "They are staying in the dark, and the weather in Niger is very difficult. So it's very sad that they are always in the dark and the house is very hot... it's OK for them, they say they will keep fighting, but it's hard for [me and my two siblings abroad] to see our family in this situation and they can't go out."

Zazia, 34, trained as a banking lawyer but works with her mother Hadja Hadiza Bazoum for the first lady's foundation, Noor, which works in the health and education sector in Niger.