Category Archives: Chad

Chad’s military leader Itno declared president as results contested by rival

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Prime minister, Masra, accuses officials of manipulating results that show he won 18.5% of vote to Itno’s 61%

Chad’s military leader, Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, has been declared the winner of this week’s presidential election, according to provisional results that have been contested by his main rival, the prime minister, Succès Masra.

The national agency that manages Chad’s election released results of Monday’s vote weeks earlier than planned. The figures showed Itno won with 61% of the vote, and Masra fell far behind in second, on 18.5%. Gunfire erupted in the capital, N’Djamena, after the announcement, though it was unclear if it was celebratory.

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Opposition cries foul over ‘dynastic dictatorship’ as Chad goes to polls

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Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno widely expected to win poll as observers voice doubts over electoral process

Chad goes to the polls on Monday in its first presidential election in three decades without Idriss Déby, the former president, in contention.

Ten men will be on the ballot, but Déby’s son, Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, who seized power at the head of a junta on the day rebels shot and killed his father in April 2021, is widely expected to win.

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Sudanese refugees in Chad unable to access medical care for war injuries

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Some people in Ambelia camp waiting for treatment to wounds resulting from ethnic violence last year

Hundreds of displaced Sudanese people living in a refugee camp across the border in Chad have been unable to access vital medical care for injuries sustained during fierce battles in the Sudanese city of Geneina in the past year.

Some of those in the vast Ambelia camp near the city of Adré have permanent disabilities that could have been avoided had they undergone surgery, according to the refugees themselves and activists who are trying to arrange travel to Port Sudan in eastern Sudan, where they say medical facilities are relatively better than in Chad.

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Chad opposition leader Yaya Dillo killed in gun clash

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Socialist leader dies after several people shot dead near party headquarters in capital of N’Djamena

The Chadian opposition politician Yaya Dillo has been killed during an exchange of fire with security forces, the state prosecutor, Oumar Mahamat Kedelaye, said.

Heavy gunfire was heard on Wednesday in the capital, N’Djamena, near the headquarters of Dillo’s opposition party, a witness said. Several people had been killed in earlier clashes near Chad’s internal security agency building.

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African leaders call for equity over minerals used for clean energy

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‘Crucial’ UN resolution attempts to avoid repeat of injustices produced by Africa’s fossil fuel sector

In an attempt to avoid the “injustices and extractivism” of fossil fuel operations, African leaders are calling for better controls on the dash for the minerals and metals needed for a clean energy transition.

A resolution for structural change that will promote equitable benefit-sharing from extraction, supported by a group of mainly African countries including Senegal, Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Chad, was presented at the UN environmental assembly in Nairobi on Wednesday and called for the sustainable use of transitional minerals.

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Hunger crisis threatens Chad as funding for food aid falters

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World Food Programme warns it will stop helping to feed 1.4 million people including refugees from Darfur as global demand for assistance increases

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that food aid for 1.4 million people in Chad faces a “looming halt” because there is no money, even as the country is experiencing an influx of refugees from the fighting in Sudan’s Darfur region.

Funding shortfalls and increasing humanitarian needs mean WFP will have to pause food for millions of displaced people and refugees in Nigeria, Central African Republic and Cameroon from December, the agency said.

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Niger coup backers call for mass mobilisation amid military threat from regional bloc

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As Ecowas chiefs prepare to meet to discuss possible action against junta, civic group says ‘we need to be ready’

Supporters of the Nigerien junta are calling for the mass mobilisation of citizens against the threat of military action by a west African regional bloc that is calling for the restoration of the country’s deposed president, Mohamed Bazoum.

With a delayed meeting of military chiefs of staff of the Ecowas bloc scheduled to take place later this week, regional tensions over the July coup against Bazoum appeared to be deepening, despite the junta’s efforts to suggest they were open to talks.

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First image of Niger’s ousted president appears online

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Mohamed Bazoum, pictured with president of Chad, believed to be being held at presidential residence

The first image of Niger’s ousted president has been published online after an attempted coup, showing the leader smiling broadly and appearing to be in good health during a meeting with the president of neighbouring Chad.

Mahamat Idriss Déby, the president of Chad, travelled to Niger as a diplomatic envoy to speak to the country’s democratically elected president, Mohamed Bazoum – who is believed to be being held at the presidential residence – and the coup leaders.

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Aid agencies raise alarm as solo children cross Chad border to flee Sudan fighting

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Unicef says ‘more and more unaccompanied children’ among thousands of refugees streaming across 1,000km-long border

Hundreds of unaccompanied children have crossed the border from Sudan into Chad in recent weeks as fighting separates families and forces minors to make the arduous journey to safety without their parents.

Humanitarian workers say “more and more” children are arriving alone in the neighbouring country, to which more than 100,000 refugees, about 60% of them under-18s, have fled since fighting erupted between rival military factions in mid-April.

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Race against time to stop ‘humanitarian disaster’ among Sudan refugees in Chad

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Coming rainy season threatens 80,000 living in ‘heartbreaking’ conditions in vulnerable border region after fleeing war at home

Tens of thousands of Sudanese refugees, many of them children, who have crossed the border into Chad risk a “major humanitarian disaster” when the rainy season begins within weeks, a Red Cross official has warned.

About 80,000 people have sought refuge in the country to the west of Sudan as weeks of fighting between two warring generals forces hundreds of thousands from their homes.

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Sudan’s neighbours have little to offer refugees, warns UN

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Thousands of Sudanese are crossing borders into countries already severely stressed by drought, conflicts and food insecurity, say UN officials

The UN is in a race against time to get food supplies to Sudanese refugees crossing the border into Chad before the rainy season begins, as neighbouring countries struggle to cope with the numbers of people fleeing the civil war.

More than 110,000 people are now estimated to have crossed into other countries as patchy ceasefires fail to stop deadly clashes between Sudanese army troops and a paramilitary rival that have killed hundreds and forced more than 330,000 from their homes.

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Pneumonia vaccine delays kill thousands needlessly in Africa

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Access to PCV jabs in South Sudan, Somalia, Guinea and Chad ‘could save 40,000 children a year’

Delays in rolling out a vaccine against childhood pneumonia in four of the world’s poorest countries have been blamed for thousands of unnecessary deaths.

South Sudan, Somalia, Guinea and Chad are four of the last African nations without the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV), one of the most powerful tools against pneumonia in children.

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Sudan street battles threaten fragile ceasefire as Turkish plane shot

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Concerns truce agreement may not hold despite three-day extension as unrest continues

Street battles and gunfire threaten what remains of a fragile ceasefire in Sudan, now hanging by a thread despite a three-day extension of the truce agreement, as a Turkish evacuation plane was shot at as it attempted to land.

The Sudanese Armed Forces, loyal to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and its rival, the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group, traded blame for the incident at the Wadi Seidna airbase, 12.5 miles (20km) north of Khartoum on the western bank of the Nile

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Devastating floods in Nigeria were 80 times more likely because of climate crisis

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Stark findings add pressure on Cop27 negotiators to deliver meaningful funding to vulnerable countries

The heavy rain behind recent devastating flooding in Nigeria, Niger and Chad was made about 80 times more likely by the climate crisis, a study has found.

The finding is the latest stark example of the severe impacts that global heating is already wreaking on communities, even with just a 1C rise in global temperature to date. It adds pressure on the world’s nations at the UN Cop27 climate summit in Egypt to deliver meaningful action on protecting and compensating affected countries.

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French-Australian dual citizen released after being kidnapped in Chad

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Jérôme Hugonnot, who ran a wildlife conservation park, was abducted in a restive border region with Sudan

A conservationist with dual French and Australian citizenship has been released two days after being kidnapped in north-eastern Chad, the country’s president said.

Jérôme Hugonnot was working for the Sahara Conservation Fund in Wadi Fara province bordering Sudan at the time of his abduction Friday.

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Dozens dead in Chad capital as security forces fire on protesters

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‘Rebels’ accused of setting fire to ruling party HQ during demonstrations calling for faster democratic transition

Security forces in Chad’s capital, N’Djamena, have violently dispersed banned protests calling for a quicker transition to democratic rule, leaving at least 50 dead and dozens injured, according to the country’s prime minister.

Palls of black smoke could be seen in some areas in N’Djamena and the crack of teargas grenades could be heard throughout much of the day. Several roads had been blocked with barricades and burning tyres and most shops closed their doors to avoid looting.

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Unity ‘the only way forward’ says Chad PM as anti-junta anger rises

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In interview from capital, Saleh Kebzabo says he wants powerful rebels to join transitional government

Chad’s new prime minister has said that uniting the population “is the only way forward” for the chronically unstable African country after its president, Mahamat Idriss Déby, appointed him to head an interim national unity administration.

Saleh Kebzabo, 75, a former opposition figure and journalist, has been tasked with leading the country towards the first free and fair elections in its political history.

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Libyan militia detains hundreds of Chadians after poachers arrested

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At least 400 Chadian workers rounded up in east Libyan town of Ajdabiya after security forces in Chad arrest four Libyan poachers

Hundreds of Chadians are being rounded up and detained on the streets of a Libyan town for a ninth day in retaliation for the Chad government’s arrest of four Libyan men on suspicion of poaching endangered animals.

At least 400 people have now been arrested in the city of Ajdabiya by a militia linked to the warlord Khalifa Haftar, commander of the self-styled Libyan National Army.

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Oldest human or just another ape? Row erupts over 7m-year-old fossil

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Remains from Chad desert provoke rancorous dispute over whether species was earliest to walk upright

It is a dispute that has taken a long time to reach boiling point. Seven million years after an apelike creature – since nicknamed Toumaï – traversed the landscape of modern Chad, its means of mobility has triggered a dispute among fossil experts. Some claim this was the oldest member of the human lineage. Others that it was just an old ape.

The row, kindled by a paper in Nature, last week led scientists to denounce opponents while others accused rivals of building theories on “less than five minutes’ observation” .

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‘On bad days, we don’t eat’: Hunger grows for thousands displaced by conflict in Chad

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As war forces more to flee, humanitarian organisations facing funding shortfalls and increasing demand are unable to keep pace

The number of people having to leave their homes in the Lake Chad region of central Africa has more than doubled over the past year with agencies warning they are struggling to feed people.

The fighting, which last month claimed the life of the president of Chad, Idriss Déby, has displaced more than 400,000 Chadians, according to the International Organization for Migration, a rise from 169,000 at the start of 2020. More than 65,000 people were displaced in the first quarter of this year.

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