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Chad says the army prevented an armed attack on the presidential compound, 19 killed News


The attack came just hours after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with government officials in the capital N’Djamena

At least 19 people were killed in Chad, where security forces said they foiled an attempt by armed fighters storm the presidential complex in the capital N’Djamena.

At least 18 of the 24 gunmen were killed in a failed attack on the president’s office on Wednesday night, the government said, and one member of the security forces was also killed in the gunfight.

“There were 18 dead and six injured” among the attackers “and we suffered one death and three injuries, one of them seriously,” Chadian Foreign Minister and government spokesman Abderaman Koulamallah said.

Hours after the shooting, Koulamallah appeared in a video, surrounded by soldiers with a gun in his belt, saying: “The situation is completely under control … the destabilization attempt has been quelled.”

The attack coincided with an official visit by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Chad.

A few hours before the shooting broke out, Wang Yi met with Chad President Mahamat Idriss Deby and other high officials. Deby was in the presidential compound at the time of the attack, according to Koulamallah.

Chadian Foreign Minister Abderaman Koulamallah, right, meets with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, left, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in N’Djamena on January 8, 2025. [Joris Bolomey/AFP]

Deby took power after rebels killed his father, longtime president Idriss Deby, in 2021. The elder Deby has ruled Chad since a coup in the early 1990s.

A security source told French news agency AFP that the attackers were members of the armed group Boko Haram, but Koulamallah later said they were “probably not” insurgents, describing them instead as drunken “Pieds Nickeles” – a reference to a French comic featuring hapless crooks .

A security source also told the Reuters news agency that the incident was likely an “attempted terrorist attack.”

“Individuals in three vehicles attacked military camps around the president’s office, but the army neutralized them,” said the source, who wished to remain anonymous.

Residents of the area described hearing loud gunfire.

The attack came less than two weeks after Chad held general elections hailed by the government as a key step towards ending military rule, but marked by low turnout and opposition accusations of fraud.

The opposition’s call for voters to boycott the election left the field open for candidates who sided with the president.

A former French colony, which is rich in oil resources, but one of the poorest countries in Africa, hosted the last French military bases in the region known as the Sahel, but ended defense and security agreements with Paris at the end of November, calling them “outdated”.

About 1,000 French military personnel are stationed in the country and are in the process of being withdrawn. Their departure came after France was forced out of three Sahelian countries run by military governments hostile to Paris: Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.

Senegal and Ivory Coast have also asked France to leave military bases on their territory.



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