Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice when it's traditional to eat lamb, is only days away but sheep markets in Niger are struggling amid insecurity and economic woes.

On Wednesday, trader Zimbeye Sekaraou was tending to his flock of sheep at a market in the capital, Niamey.

He brought the sheep from Dioundiou in the country's Dosso Region, near the border with Nigeria and Benin.

The region has seen increasing insecurity in recent years.

Motorcycles, often used by extremists to move around, were banned from circulating last month – a frequent measure taken by authorities in the Sahel in response to insecurity.

But motorcycles are also the main way that sheep traders like Sekaraou transport livestock.

“So to go and buy sheep there, even to bring them home is a problem, given the situation now that motorcycles are not allowed,” he said.

Security has generally worsened in Niger in the nearly two years following a 2023 coup, when the military took power and arrested former president Mohamed Bazoum, who remains under house arrest.

Niger was the last of the three Sahelian states that now make up the Alliance of Sahel States to fall under control of a military junta, following Mali in 2020 and Burkina Faso in 2022.

Subsequent sanctions and suspensions on aid have left Niger, already one of the poorest countries in the world, in an even worse place economically.

The Nigerien government banned exports of sheep ahead of this year’s holiday in a bid to maintain the country’s supply for its citizens and prevent prices from skyrocketing.

Hasoumi Daouda came to buy a sheep for his family at the market.

He said that thanks to the ban on exports, sheep prices were okay compared to past years.

“Given the measures taken by the state, there is certainly enough livestock,” he said.

“But in reality, it’s the financial crisis that makes that makes them too expensive to buy."