Niger Air Force C-130H Delivered

The Niger Air Force received a C-130H Hercules from the United States at Air Base 101 in Niamey, the second aircraft of the type handed over under a transfer programme aimed at building Nigerien airlift capacity. Air Base 101 adjoins Niamey's international airport and hosts the service's transport fleet alongside partner-nation detachments. The Hercules gives Niger a heavy tactical transport able to move troops, equipment and relief supplies across a country of more than one million square kilometres where road movement is slow and frequently insecure, and to sustain the counter-insurgency operations the armed forces conduct across the Sahel.