Not less than 324 soldiers, rebels and civilians were killed in two African countries over the weekend. The Chadian Army said it lost five of its soldiers, and killed 300 rebels in the north of the country.
Similarly, 19 civilians were killed when armed men raided a village in west Niger close to the border with Mali, a local official told AFP in the latest bloodshed in the troubled region.
“For the moment, the number of dead stands at 19, and two people have been wounded in an attack by armed men on motorbikes in the village of Gaigorou” in the Tillaberi region on Saturday evening, said the municipal official from Dessa.
An unknown number of unidentified assailants, known locally as bandits, initially attacked people attending a funeral at a cemetery, before going on to the village where they “shot at everyone they saw”, the official said.
The Tillaberi region is situated on the lawless “three-border” zone where the frontiers of Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso converge and has regularly been the target of jihadist groups affiliated with the Islamic State group.
“What concerns us a lot is this escalation of violence and insecurity that is recently taking place in the region”, Tillaberi governor Tidjani Ibrahim Katiella said in March, pointing to the increased imposition of Islamic taxes by militants, theft of livestock, and violence against civilians.
Thirteen people were killed last month when armed men on motorbikes raided the villages of Zibane-Koira Zeno, Zibane Koira-Tegui, and Gadabo.
Attacks against civilians have increased since the beginning of the year — more than 300 people died in three series of attacks in western Niger. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks so far.
However, in Chad, a heavily armed rebel group launched a raid from its rear base in Libya on April 11, the same day as Chad’s presidential election that is expected to see the incumbent Idriss Deby Itno returned to power.
The raid by the Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT) saw “more than 300 rebels neutralized” and claimed the lives of “five martyrs” or government troops, army spokesman General Azem Bermandoa Agouna told AFP.
Bermandoa said 36 soldiers had been wounded in fighting on Saturday and 150 rebels were taken prisoner, including three senior members. The government has said that the rebel offensive in the provinces of Tibesti and Kanem was over.
Fighting resumed late Sunday afternoon, General Bermandoa said, adding however that calm had returned to the area. FACT, for its part, said in a statement on Sunday that it had “liberated” the Kanem region that saw clashes on Saturday.
Bermandoa said 24 vehicles had been seized and that mopping-up operations were ongoing to “track down the last ones fleeing.” Tanks were deployed in the main roads of the Chadian capital N’Djamena, an AFP journalist reported.
The Tibesti mountains near the Libyan frontier frequently see fighting between rebels and the army, as well as in the northeast bordering Sudan. French air strikes were needed to stop an incursion there in February 2019.
The Union of Resistance Forces (UFR), led by Deby’s nephew Timan Erdimi, had entered Chad from Libya in columns of pick-up trucks. The UFR said Sunday that it supported FACT, but without saying whether its fighters took part in Saturday’s clash.
The UFR was allied with Chadian rebels in 2008 when they launched a coup attempt, stopped at the gates of the presidential palace by a French military intervention.
FACT is based in Libya, where it has a non-aggression pact with Khalifa Haftar, a military strongman who controls much of the country’s east.
It is mainly made up of the Saharan Goran people, while the UFR is majority Zaghawa, the president’s ethnic group.
The US embassy in N’Djamena on Saturday ordered non-essential personnel to leave the country, warning of possible violence in the capital. Britain also urged its nationals to leave the country.
But Chadian Foreign Minister Amine Abba Sidick appealed for calm, saying: “The situation is not worrying. The military situation is well under the control of the Chadian army.”
Meanwhile, vote-counting was continuing from the April 11 election in which Deby is assured victory after sidelining his main rivals.
Deby, who has ruled the former French colony with an iron fist for 30 years, campaigned on security issues in the troubled region. Preliminary results will not be announced until April 25.
