Mariana van Zeller

So the funny thing is that there was an American military base, actually, one of the biggest Air Force bases ever built.

It costs over $100 million to build just two miles from our little hotel in Agadez.

We were the only foreigners there apart from aid workers that sort of live behind barbed wire and in compounds.

But we were the only foreigners staying in a hotel.

This hotel, interestingly enough, was actually built when Gaddafi came to visit in the 90s or late 80s.

And it was a rundown hotel.

We were there, again, no protection, nothing.

And the military base is just two miles from us.

And we'd tried to get inside the base to film, and we'd been denied access to the base.

But when the coup happened...

We managed to get a contact inside and started asking them.

We're here with no security.

Can you guys come and help us and figure out, you know, take us into the base?

Something where all American citizens, except for our fixer, our local guy who was actually from Mali, but everybody else was American.

And they were stuck in the situation that all the other countries had started calling this a coup, but the U.S.

government did not.

And because the moment they called it a coup, they would have to remove...

the military, possibly remove military, remove their aid from the country.

And that's the last thing you want to do.

So they couldn't, they didn't want to evacuate us.