Niger destroys arms to celebrate peace

The President of Niger, Tanja Mamadou, has lit a 'flame of peace' to incinerate more than a-thousand weapons at a ceremony in the northern city of Agadez.

The bonfire -- greeted by applause and ululations from a crowd of several thousand -- was aimed at highlighting the end of Tuareg and other rebel wars in northern Niger, following the peace accords of 1995 and 1998.

The President of Chad, Idriss Deby, and of Sierra Leone, Ahmed Tejan Kabbah, attended the ceremony, as did representatives of Burkina Faso, Algeria, France and the OAU.

The Tuareg leader, Mohamed Anako, used the occasion to announce the dissolution of several rebel movements and militias.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service