The assault got here simply hours after China’s Overseas Minister Wang Yi met with authorities officers within the capital N’Djamena
Not 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 complicated within the capital N’Djamena.
Not less than 18 of a pressure 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 useless and 6 injured” among the many attackers “and we suffered one dying and three injured, considered one of them severely”, Chad’s international minister and authorities spokesman Abderaman Koulamallah mentioned.
Hours after the taking pictures, Koulamallah appeared in a video, surrounded by troopers and with a gun on his belt, saying, “The state of affairs is totally below 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 taking pictures erupted, Wang Yi had met with Chad’s President Mahamat Idriss Deby and different senior officers. Deby was within the presidential complicated on the time of the assault, in line 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 informed the French information company AFP that the attackers have been members of the Boko Haram armed group, however Koulamallah later mentioned they have been “in all probability 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 informed the Reuters information company that the incident was seemingly an “tried terrorist assault”.
“People in three autos 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 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 assets 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 technique 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.
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Sourcing information and pictures from aljazeera.com
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