Military says it foiled attack on presidential palace

Chad’s national prosecutor said on Thursday that an attempt to storm the presidential palace on Wednesday evening had been foiled.

Two dozen armed men allegedly carrying “weapons, machetes and knives” attacked the palace guards after pretending to be in a broken-down vehicle by the gates.

President in palace at time of attack

“They killed two soldiers and seriously wounded five others,” state prosecutor Oumar Kedelaye said, adding that 18 assailants were killed and six were wounded.

President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno was inside the palace at the time of the attack, the motive for which was still unclear.

At the time of the attack on Wednesday, gunshots were heard near the presidency in the capital of Chad, N’Djamena and convoys of military vehicles were seen driving toward the presidency too.

While all roads leading to the presidency had been blocked initially, all of those restrictions were lifted by Thursday morning, with traffic back to normal.

Infrastructure Minister says ‘situation is under control’

Shortly after the initial reports of gunfire, Chad’s Infrastructure Minister Aziz Mahamat Saleh said the situation was being dealt with.

“Nothing serious, no panic, the situation is under control,” he posted on Facebook without giving further details.

A government spokesperson echoed those sentiments.

“It was a little incident … everything is calm,” Abderaman Koulamallah said in a video posted on Facebook, which he said was filmed at the presidency. “This whole attempt at destabilization has been wiped out.”

Contested elections amid opposition cries of foul play

Wednesday’s gunshots come less than two weeks after the African country held contested legislative, provincial, and local elections.

Chad’s government hailed the elections a key step towards ending military rule, but it was marked by low turnout and accusations of fraud from the country’s opposition, which boycotted the polls leaving the field open to candidates aligned with Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno.

The military first steered Itno into power in 2021 after his father’s death.

The elder Idriss Deby Itno had ruled the Sahel country with an iron fist for three decades until his death in April 2021.

The December vote was held amid the backdrop of recurring attacks by the jihadist group Boko Haram, the ending of a military accord with former colonial master France, and accusations that Chad was interfering in the conflict ravaging neighboring Sudan.

km,jsi/ab (AFP, Reuters)