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Africa Horn | |||
Chad rebels attack key town, army withdraws | |||
2006-11-26 | |||
NÂ’DJAMENA - Chadian rebels attacked the eastern regional capital of Abeche on Saturday in their latest strike against President Idriss DebyÂ’s rule, but government forces said they had withdrawn and surrounded the town. ChadÂ’s chief of staff said in a statement it had pulled troops back from Abeche, which is located 160 km (100 miles) from the border with Sudan, to prevent civilian casualties after the early morning attack by several armed convoys.
‘The situation is currently calm. The rebels remain in town,’ Claire Bourgeois, head of the United Nation’s refugee agency (UNHCR) in eastern Chad, told France’s RFI radio. ‘Humanitarian workers are not in danger.’ The French military, which has forces stationed in Abeche under a defence cooperation accord with the government, was bringing its citizens to its base, diplomats said. ‘The French have secured the air base and all flights have been grounded,’ said one foreign diplomat, adding the Chadian army barracks had been plundered.
Diplomats said they believed the latest attack from the east was being carried out by rebels of the anti-Deby coalition, Union of Forces for Democracy and Development (UFDD). Eastern Chad, where UNHCR runs camps for thousands of refugees from SudanÂ’s Darfur and for displaced Chadians, has descended into lawlessness due to frequent rebel attacks and incursions by Janjaweed militia from across the border. France, which stations some Mirage fighters at its Abeche base, has in the past backed the Deby government against the rebels with logistics and intelligence support. | |||
Posted by:Steve White |