Chad Foils Assault on Presidency Weeks After Disputed Elections
(Bloomberg) -- Chad said it averted a “destabilization attempt” after security forces repelled two dozen assailants that briefly entered the presidency where the West African nation’s military leader had received China’s foreign minister.
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The men emerged from one or two cars that seemed to have broken down outside the presidency, government spokesman Abderaman Koulamallah said. At least 19 people were killed, among them 18 assailants and one palace guard, he told public broadcaster Télé Tchad.
The incident comes two weeks after the coup-hit country held parliamentary elections that were boycotted by the party of President Mahamat Déby’s main opponent, former Prime Minister Succès Masra. The nation, a long-term partner to the West in the fight against Islamist insurgents in the Sahel region, last year ordered French troops to leave.
“The dodgy presidential election and the expulsion of the French, who shared intelligence with the Chadians, have raised conflict risk,” Francois Conradie, lead political economist with Oxford Economics, said in an emailed note.
Chad ended a security agreement with former colonial power France in November and another with the US in April.
Six attackers were captured and “in the hands of the security forces,” Koulamallah said, adding the attack was “an isolated and desperate act by young people in the capital.”
Wednesday’s assault in N’Djamena was followed by gunfire coming from the presidency around 8 p.m. and military vehicles blocking the surrounding streets. It wasn’t immediately clear what sparked the shooting that lasted about an hour.
The attackers “were completely drugged,” Koulamallah told Télé Tchad. “They had a lot of alcohol, small water bottles filled with alcohol. It looked like whiskey.”
Unverified videos shared on WhatsApp showed the bodies of several men inside what looked like the presidential palace grounds.
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi on a four-country tour in Africa met with Déby in N’Djamena on Wednesday. The Chinese official left the presidency before the assault.
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When asked about the episode on Thursday at a regular press briefing in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said Wang had “concluded his successful visit” to Chad.
“We firmly support Chad in its effort to keep the country safe and stable,” Guo added.
It’s the first such assault on Déby, whose father ex-President Idriss Déby faced multiple attempts to overthrow him.
Preliminary results from the Dec. 29 parliamentary elections, which followed a presidential vote last year in which Déby formalized his rule after a 2021 power grab, are expected by Jan. 15.
Mahamat Déby took office after his father was killed visiting troops fighting rebels in the country’s north in 2021.
He’s faced with the spillover from the war in neighboring Sudan with more than 700,000 people seeking refuge in Chad from the fighting in Sudan’s Darfur region, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Sudan has said Chad is allowing the United Arab Emirates to provide support to the Rapid Support Forces, a Sudan paramilitary group, from an air base near its eastern border with Sudan.
In the west, Boko Haram insurgents have been launching attacks in the country’s Lake Chad region, which borders Nigeria.
--With assistance from Kamailoudini Tagba.
(Updates with analyst comment in fourth paragraph.)
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