N’DJAMENA – The President of Chad, Idriss Deby Itno, died following the wounds sustained in battle during a military action against the rebels in the north of the country. This was reported by a spokesman for the armed forces. Marshal Deby, 69, 31 of whom in power, a strong ally of Paris, had just been re-elected president for a sixth term.
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The country is now in the hands of his son. The country’s National Assembly and government were dissolved and replaced by a military council headed by Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, with a temporary assignment: 18 months.
The rumors of his death started running on social media this morning. Repeated confirmations and denials, until the official announcement of the army, on state television.
The North of Chad since February 2019 is the scene of the rebellion of the Front for the alternation and harmony of Chad (Fact), a group of militiamen that left Libya with the aim of overthrowing the government of Deby. After fierce fighting in which at least 300 rebels had been killed, the Chadian army said last Saturday that the insurrection in the Tibesti and Kanem provinces was over. The Fact had instead claimed the conquest of Kanem.
Deby had just been confirmed as the winner of the presidential elections on April 11 with 79.39% of the vote by the Independent National Electoral Commission (Ceni), which registered a turnout of 64.81%. The former prime minister Albert Pahimi Padackè he finished second with 10.32%.
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The opposition, which had failed to agree on its own candidate in the last elections, had denounced an unfair electoral campaign, pressure and violations of individual freedoms. Until yesterday, the authorities minimized the rebel forces, despite the heavy clashes that occurred in the last three days a few hundred kilometers from N’Djamena, the capital.
Deby took power in 1990, overthrowing the dictator Hissene Habrè, in a country torn apart by the war against Libya where the president claimed to have “established and anchored democracy, peace and security”. Propaganda statements that have failed to erase the long-standing inter-community tensions between shepherds and farmers, unemployment or the threat of the armed group Boko Haram, which in the Lake Chad region is responsible for attacks on civilians and soldiers.
In recent years, Deby has been considered the best African ally of the countries of the Sahel region in the fight against terrorism, despite the abuses of which his soldiers are sometimes accused. Deby was also an ally of the West and especially of France, which supported his coup in 1990 and has since intervened several times to save him from threatening insurrections, favoring the maintenance of the status quo in a very unstable region. A country rich in oil, Chad also occupies a strategic position at the crossroads of the Sahel.
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