Idriss Déby, who ruled the oil-making country of Chad for three decades, died Tuesday right after sustaining injuries in clashes among rebels and federal government troops, the country’s navy introduced.
In a statement browse on condition tv, military spokesman Gen. Azem Bermandoa Agouma explained Mr. Déby was wounded in a struggle with rebels advancing on the capital from the country’s northern border with Libya.
The announcement of his loss of life, which couldn’t immediately be verified independently, arrived a working day right after Mr. Déby, a vital ally of Chad’s former colonial energy France and the U.S. in the struggle against Boko Haram militants, was declared the winner of a contested April eleven presidential election. According to the official results, he won 79% of the vote.
“The president of the republic, the head of condition, the supreme leader of the armed forces, Idriss Déby Itno, has just taken his last breath while defending the territorial integrity on the battlefield,” Gen. Bermandoa explained.
Above the weekend, the U.S. Condition Section requested all nonessential team of its embassy in Chad to depart the place, citing the advancement of rebels from the north toward the capital, N’Djamena.
The fighting in Chad is a signal of how conflict in neighboring Libya has produced instability in the broader area. Rebels from the Entrance for Modify and Concord in Chad, or Reality, are centered in Libya, but crossed into Chadian territory on election working day.
The team was deployed at Jufra air foundation, a major navy foundation controlled by Khalifa Haftar, a warlord backed by Russia and the United Arab Emirates who introduced a 14-thirty day period assault on Libya’s internationally recognized federal government in 2019. Russia has also deployed paramilitary fighters and jet fighters to the same air foundation.
Reality has been expanding its presence in southern Libya and was guarding some of Mr. Haftar’s bases in the place, in accordance to a report introduced in March by the United Nations Panel of Gurus on Libya, which monitors navy developments in the place. FACT’s leader claims neutrality in the Libyan conflict. The group’s fighters served in two of Mr. Haftar’s battalions, in accordance to the report.
Mr. Haftar’s assault on Tripoli ended in 2020 and Libya’s rival factions shaped a unity federal government in February 2021.
Write to Gabriele Steinhauser at [email protected] and Jared Malsin at [email protected]
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