A total of 18 attackers and one security personnel died after gunmen stormed the presidential complex in Chad’s capital N’Djamena on Wednesday January 8, 2025.
Reporters heard gunfire near the site and saw tanks on the street, while security sources reported that armed men had tried to overrun the compound.
Official sources later said 19 people were killed in the fighting, of which 18 were members of the 24-strong commando unit that launched the assault.
Government spokesman and Foreign Minister Abderaman Koulamallah told AFP that “There were 18 dead and six injured” among the attackers “and we suffered one death and three injured, one of them seriously”.
Later, Koulamallah was seen surrounded by soldiers and with a gun on his belt, saying “the situation is completely under control… the destabilisation attempt was put down”.
The attackers were suspected to be members of Boko Haram terror group, however Koulamallah later said they were “probably not” terrorists, describing them as drunken “Pieds Nickeles” — a reference to a French comic featuring hapless criminals.
They confronted four guards before entering the presidential complex, where they were “easily overpowered”, adding the surviving assailants were “completely drugged”.
Chad is under military rule and faces regular attacks by Boko Haram, especially in the western Lake Chad region that borders Cameroon, Nigeria, and Niger.
The landlocked country recently ended a military agreement with former colonial power France and has been accused of interfering in the conflict ravaging neighbouring Sudan.
Sources in N’Djamena said that an armed commando unit shot inside the presidency on Wednesday evening around 7:45 p.m. (1845 GMT), before being overrun by the presidential guard.
Hours before the shootout, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno and other senior officials.
To consolidate his grip on power, Deby has reshuffled the army, historically dominated by the Zaghawas and Gorane, his mother’s ethnic group. He has also sought new strategic partnerships with Hungary and Russia.