CHAD: Chad's President Idriss Deby held a victory rally but many residents fear rebels fighting to topple him may return, while hospitals in N'Dajamena continue to overflow with wounded civilians

Record ID: 214322

  • Title: CHAD: Chad's President Idriss Deby held a victory rally but many residents fear rebels fighting to topple him may return, while hospitals in N'Dajamena continue to overflow with wounded civilians
  • Date: 16th April 2006
  • Summary: IDRISS DEBY SALUTING SUPPORTERS
  • Embargoed: 1st May 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Chad
  • Country: Chad
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA2HW6NZIQ51G2Q6MV7K1XZKW8I
  • Story Text: Chad's President Idriss Deby held a victory rally attended by thousands of supporters in the sun-baked capital N'Djamena on Saturday (April 15) but many nervous residents feared rebels fighting to topple him may return.
    Insurgents bent on ending Deby's near 16-year rule over one of the world's poorest countries launched their most daring strike yet on Thursday (April 13), slipping into the dusty city at dawn before loyalist forces fought them off.
    Minibuses and mopeds ferried Deby supporters, some draped in Chadian flags and dancing to music on vehicle roofs, to see Deby speak. But some residents fear the jubilation is premature. The government declaration of victory was met by statements from the rebels that their withdrawal from the city had been tactical.
    Chad, which says the fighting killed more than 300 people, has accused Sudan of backing the rebels and cut diplomatic ties with Khartoum on Friday, shutting its borders and threatening to stop sheltering refugees from Sudan's Darfur region.
    Addressing the rally, Deby called for a minute's silence. He told the crowd that the international community had failed to heed his warnings that the Darfur crisis was spreading and that Sudan was a threat to the security of central Africa as a whole.
    Sudan has denied helping anti-Deby rebels.
    Hospitals in N'Dajamena continued to overflow with wounded civilians.
    Casualties in blood-soaked bandages lay in field tents outside a main hospital. Soldiers in pick-up trucks wearing camouflage and desert scarves patrolled the streets outside.
    "We have treated basically people wounded resulting from the battle which was inside the towns, so civilians who were passing by or staying in the houses hit by bullets going around because the rebels and governmental forces were running after each other inside the town," said Duccio Staderini, head of the Medecins Sans Frontieres-Belgium aid mission in N'Djamena, which is treating 110 wounded civilians in two hospitals.
    Chad also threatened to cut off oil production unless it was given access to revenues frozen in January by the World Bank in a spat over how petro-dollars are spent. Deby has said Chad needed the money to help bolster national security.
    The government paraded what it said were 160 captured rebels and 14 vehicles at a rally in N'Djamena on Friday. Confusion over where the remaining rebels were and what they planned to do next did little to calm nerves.
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