Niger Confirms Journalist Moussa Kaka Is in Custody Two Months After Disappearance; Location and Charges Unclear

Two months after veteran Nigerien journalist Moussa Kaka disappeared in Niamey, Niger’s authorities have acknowledged that he is in state custody but still have not said where he is being held, what specific offense he is accused of, or produced any public charging document.

The lack of basic information about one of Niger’s best-known journalists has drawn growing pressure from press-freedom and human-rights groups, which say his family and colleagues were left without answers for weeks and are now demanding that authorities disclose his whereabouts and release him unless he is formally charged with a recognizable crime.

Kaka was last seen on the evening of Aug. 31, 2026, leaving the offices of Radio Télévision Saraounia in Niamey to drive home. He never arrived and was reported missing. Kaka’s family later filed a complaint with Niamey’s judicial police seeking an investigation, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. His vehicle has still not been found, according to Reporters Without Borders and other press-freedom reporting.

Niger’s first public acknowledgment that Kaka was being held came not in a domestic court filing or police statement, but during the country’s Universal Periodic Review, a U.N. human-rights review process, in Geneva on Sept. 25. According to the U.N. transcript, Justice Minister Alio Daouda said Kaka was being detained, had allegedly “committed an offence,” and would “answer before the courts.” He did not say what the alleged offense was or where Kaka was being held.

Then, on Oct. 6, RSF said Daouda confirmed to the group that “Moussa Kaka is alive,” but again gave no location for his detention and no public legal basis for it. No publicly available official document cited by rights groups sets out formal charges or identifies a prison or detention facility. That absence is central to why organizations including Human Rights Watch, RSF, CPJ and the Media Foundation for West Africa say the case bears the hallmarks of an enforced disappearance.

Kaka is the director-general of Radio Télévision Saraounia and a longtime former correspondent for Radio France Internationale, the French public broadcaster whose signals Niger suspended after the 2023 military coup. He is one of the country’s most prominent journalists and has continued reporting through successive governments despite past arrests.

His disappearance came days after an attempted mutiny in Niamey on Aug. 29, after which authorities carried out arrests and a broader crackdown, according to rights groups and press-freedom organizations. Since the 2023 coup that brought Niger’s junta to power, authorities have tightened control over political and civic life, and rights groups say a broadened cybercrime law has been used against journalists. In October 2025, Kaka and five other journalists were arrested in Niamey and charged under that law with “complicity in distributing documents likely to disturb public order.” They were later released.

Kaka also was arrested in 2007 over his reporting on the Tuareg rebellion and spent about 379 days in prison before his release in October 2008.

On Oct. 28, Human Rights Watch urged Niger’s authorities to disclose Kaka’s whereabouts, ensure his safety and release him unless he is charged with a valid criminal offense. “Two months after Moussa Kaka vanished in Niger, the authorities have yet to provide his location or explain his detention,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch.

RSF said it had referred the case to the U.N. Committee on Enforced Disappearances. Human Rights Watch also cited Senegalese human rights defender and former U.N. rights expert Alioune Tine, who said: “Moussa Kaka’s place is not in detention.”