The assault got here simply hours after China’s Overseas Minister Wang Yi met with authorities officers within the capital N’Djamena
No less than 19 individuals have been killed in Chad the place safety forces mentioned they’d prevented an try by armed fighters to storm the presidential advanced within the capital N’Djamena.
No less than 18 of a drive of 24 armed males have been killed within the failed assault on the president’s workplace on Wednesday night, the federal government mentioned, and one member of the safety forces additionally died within the gun battles.
“There have been 18 lifeless and 6 injured” among the many attackers “and we suffered one loss of life and three injured, one in all them severely”, Chad’s international minister and authorities spokesman Abderaman Koulamallah mentioned.
Hours after the capturing, Koulamallah appeared in a video, surrounded by troopers and with a gun on his belt, saying, “The scenario is totally underneath management … the destabilisation try was put down.”
The assault coincided with an official go to by China’s Overseas Minister Wang Yi to Chad.
Hours earlier than the capturing erupted, Wang Yi had met with Chad’s President Mahamat Idriss Deby and different senior officers. Deby was within the presidential advanced on the time of the assault, in accordance with Koulamallah.
Deby seized energy after rebels killed his father, longstanding President Idriss Deby, in 2021. The older Deby had dominated Chad since a coup within the early Nineteen Nineties.
A safety supply advised the French information company AFP that the attackers have been members of the Boko Haram armed group, however Koulamallah later mentioned they have been “most likely not” rebels, describing them as an alternative as drunken “Pieds Nickeles” – a reference to a French comedian that includes hapless crooks.
A safety supply additionally advised the Reuters information company that the incident was possible an “tried terrorist assault”.
“People in three automobiles attacked the navy camps across the president’s workplace, however the military neutralised them,” the supply mentioned, talking on situation of anonymity.
Residents within the space described listening to loud volleys of gunfire.
The assault comes lower than two weeks after Chad held a contested basic election that the federal government hailed as a key step in the direction of ending navy rule, however that was marked by low turnout and opposition allegations of fraud.
A name by the opposition for voters to boycott the polls left the sphere open for candidates aligned with the president.
The previous French colony, which is wealthy in oil sources however one of many poorest international locations in Africa, hosted France’s final navy bases within the area generally known as the Sahel, however on the finish of November, ended defence and safety agreements with Paris, calling them “out of date”.
About 1,000 French navy personnel have been stationed within the nation and are within the strategy of being withdrawn. Their departure follows after France was pushed out of three Sahelian international locations ruled by navy governments hostile to Paris: Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
Senegal and Ivory Coast have additionally requested France to vacate navy bases on their territory.
