A putsch shook power on Wednesday evening in Chad. An armed commando attacked the presidential palace in the capital N’Djamena and left at least one dead before being decimated, with 18 of its 24 members killed.
“The situation is completely under control. (…) This entire attempt at destabilization has been eradicated,” declared Abderaman Koulamallah, government spokesperson and Minister of Foreign Affairs, in a video published in the evening on Facebook. Of the “24 people” who made up the commando, “there were 18 dead and 6 injured”, “and we deplore one death, three injured, one seriously”.
Visit by the head of Chinese diplomacy
The minister, who spoke with his gun in his belt and surrounded by soldiers from the presidential palace, did not give further details on the perpetrators of the attack, in this message broadcast live and intended to reassure the population. One of the security sources indicated that the attackers were part of the jihadist group Boko Haram, which Chadian security forces are fighting in the Lake Chad region, bordering Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger.
A little later, the minister spoke of an “attempt at destabilization” carried out by a “collection of nickel-plated feet” drugged and drunk who came in civilian clothes from a poor neighborhood in the south of the city with “weapons, cutters ( machetes) and knives. He further estimated that the attack was “probably not terrorist”.
This took place a few hours after the visit to N’Djamena of the Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Wang Yi, who had several meetings with Chadian leaders, including one at the presidency with the head of state Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno.
Heavy gunfire was heard for nearly an hour in neighborhoods near the presidency, before stopping around 8:50 p.m. All roads leading to the presidency were quickly closed to traffic. Tanks were deployed in the streets, including one in front of the central police station, and armed police stationed at street corners. In these neighborhoods in the center of the capital, people, visibly worried, rushed to get back on their cars or motorbikes to return home.
End of the military agreement with Paris
Chad made a surprise announcement at the end of last November that it was ending the military agreement between Paris and N’Djamena, marking the end of sixty years of military cooperation since the end of colonization. According to President Déby, these agreements were “completely obsolete” in the face of “the political and geostrategic realities of our time”.
Our articles on Chad
Last May, three years of transition ended in N’Djamena, with the election of Mahamat Idriss Déby, brought to power by a military junta after the death of his father Idriss Déby, killed by rebels at the front in 2021. Threatened by rebel offensives, Déby senior was able to count on the support of the French army to repel them in 2008 and then in 2019.
Source: www.20minutes.fr
