The president of Chad, Idriss\u00a0D\u00e9by, has died of injuries suffered while visiting troops on the frontline of a fight against rebels in the Sahel country\u2019s north.<\/p>\n
Azem Bermendao Agouna, an army spokesman, announced his death in a broadcast on state television on Tuesday, saying D\u00e9by, 68, \u201chas just breathed his last defending the sovereign nation on the battlefield\u201d.<\/p>\n
Some foreign observers suggested his death cast doubt on his protective guard, or that the country\u2019s military had underestimated the threat the rebels posed, Sky News reported.<\/p>\n
It quoted Laith Alkhouri, a global intelligence adviser, as saying: \u201cIt raises concerns regarding the security forces’ assessment of the clashes and their intelligence regarding the severity of the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aljazeera reported that\u00a0General Mahamat Kaka, otherwise known as Mahamat Idriss D\u00e9by Itno, the son of Idriss, had been named interim head of state.<\/p>\n
The 37-year-old would head an 18-month transitional council made up of military officers, Agouna said in the television broadcast. \u201cFree and democratic\u201d elections would be held when the transitional period was over.<\/p>\n
The government and parliament have been dissolved, a curfew has been imposed from 6pm to 5am and the borders have been shut.<\/p>\n
The news of his death came a day after D\u00e9by, who came to power in a rebellion in 1990 and was one of Africa\u2019s longest-ruling leaders, won a sixth term, as per provisional results released on Monday. D\u00e9by took 79.3% of the vote in the April 11 presidential election, Aljazeera said.<\/p>\n
D\u00e9by was expected to give a victory speech after receiving the provisional results, but opted instead to visit Chadian soldiers on the frontlines, his campaign director, Mahamat Zen Bada, told The Africa Report.<\/p>\n
According to one report, the soldiers were attacked by militants from the Front pour l\u2019Alternance et la Concorde au Tchad (Front for Change and Concord in Chad) who had arrived from their base in Libya and had entered Chadian soil on April 11. Their stated goal was to rid the country of D\u00e9by\u2019s 31 years of power.<\/p>\n
Agouna said the military had been pushed back by a column of insurgents who were advancing on the capital, N\u2019Djamena.<\/p>\n
He told Reuters news agency that army troops had killed more than 300 fighters and captured 150 on Saturday in Kanem province.<\/p>\n
Five government soldiers were killed and 36 were injured, he said.<\/p>\n
The exact cause of his death could not immediately be independently confirmed due to the remote location, but the military said he had taken \u201cthe heroic lead in combat operations against terrorists who had come from Libya\u201d, Reuters said.<\/p>\n
Mahamat Mahadi Ali, the rebel leader, told Radio-France Internationale, that D\u00e9by attended the battle on Sunday (April 18), where fighting was taking place in the centre-west of the country, near Nokou in Kanem.<\/p>\n
D\u00e9by was reportedly wounded on the battlefield on Sunday and was flown 400km to N\u2019Djamena by helicopter.<\/p>\n
A former army commander-in-chief, D\u00e9by came to power in 1990 when his rebel forces overthrew then-president Hiss\u00e8ne Habr\u00e9<\/em>, who was later convicted of human rights abuses at an international tribunal in Senegal.<\/p>\n D\u00e9by had survived numerous armed rebellions and managed to stay in power until this latest insurgency, a Reuters report said.<\/p>\n It said D\u00e9by had pushed through a new constitution in 2018 that would have allowed him to stay in power until 2033. He reportedly said before the election: \u201cI know in advance that I will win, as I have done for the last 30 years.\u201d<\/p>\n A Reuters reporter in N\u2019Djamena said people were in a panic as news of his death spread, fearing that fighting could break out in the city. Many were fleeing to the outskirts and roads were jammed with traffic.<\/p>\n A regional diplomat told Reuters that naming of D\u00e9by\u2019s son as interim president was problematical as the speaker of parliament should have taken power on his death.<\/p>\n \u201cThat in itself is a coup,\u201d the diplomat told Reuters. \u201cHe has been grooming the son for some time.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The president of Chad, Idriss\u00a0D\u00e9by, has died of injuries suffered while visiting troops on the frontline of a fight against rebels in the Sahel country\u2019s north. Azem Bermendao Agouna, an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":14232,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14236"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}