The Chadian army on Sunday announced that the operation against rebels who have been on the offensive for a month is “over” and that “the situation has returned to normal”.
The war started on 11 April, the day of the presidential election in which Idriss Déby Itno was re-elected for the sixth consecutive time. It was during fighting between the army and the Front pour l’alternance et la concorde au Tchad (FACT) that Marshal Déby was killed.
Since the beginning of the offensive, the army has claimed to have killed “several hundred” FACT rebels, FACT and its columns of pick-ups first descended from April 11, southward across the Libya-Chad border, then passed through Niger, before returning to Chad in the Kanem.
Army chief of staff, Abakar Abdelkérim Daoud, remarked that “… everything is over, the national territory is secure.”
The Chadian army presented 156 FACT prisoners to the press, as well as many seized vehicles. Several hundred vehicles and armoured vehicles of the Chadian army returned to the Chadian capital N’Djamena on Sunday to celebrate the end of operations in the west of the country
Head of military operations for FACT, Béchir Mahadi asked the authorities to respect their rights as prisoners of war (and to) those who are still in rebellion outside the country to join the legal system so that together they can contribute to building a country of law and democracy.
