Chadian Military Officially Picks Idriss Derby’s Son, Mahamat As His Replacement

The Chadian Army has announced Idris Deby 37-year old son, Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, a four-star general, as the new leader of the country. Idris Deby died on the battlefield after three decades in power, the army announced on state television on Tuesday.

The shocking announcement came after the 68-year-old was proclaimed the winner of a presidential election that had given him a sixth term in office.

The army said Deby had been commanding his army at the weekend as it battled against rebels who had launched a major incursion into the north of the country on election day.

Deby “has simply breathed his ultimate breath protecting the sovereign nation on the battlefield,” navy spokesman General Azem Bermandoa Agouna stated in a statement read out on country tv.

Deby, 68, had ruled Chad with an iron fist for 3 a long time but changed into a key ally in the West’s anti-jihadist campaign within the bothered Sahel place.

On Monday, the navy had claimed a “wonderful victory” in its battle in opposition to the rebels from neighbouring Libya, saying it had killed 300 opponents, with the lack of five squaddies in its personal ranks in the course of eight days of combat.

Deby might have been one of the longest-serving leaders within the global, after provisional consequences confirmed him winning the April 11 election.

He turned into a herder’s son from the Zaghawa ethnic institution who took the conventional course to strength thru the army, and relished the army subculture.

His contemporary election victory — with almost 80 percentage of the vote — had in no way been in doubt, with a divided competition, boycott calls, and a campaign wherein demonstrations were banned or dispersed.

Deby had campaigned on a promise of bringing peace and protection to the area, however his pledges have been undermined by using the rebellion incursion.

The government had sought Monday to assure concerned residents that the offensive become over.

There had been panic in a few areas of N’Djamena on Monday after tanks have been deployed alongside the metropolis’s fundamental roads, an AFP journalist stated.

The tanks have been later withdrawn other than a fringe around the president’s office, which is underneath heavy protection at some stage in everyday instances.

“The established order of a protection deployment in certain areas of the capital appears to were misunderstood,” government spokesman Cherif Mahamat Zene had stated on Twitter on Monday.

“There is not any specific chance to worry.”

However, the USA embassy in N’Djamena had on Saturday ordered non-vital personnel to depart the country, warning of feasible violence inside the capital. Britain also advised its nationals to depart.

France’s embassy said in an advisory to its nationals in Chad that the deployment become a precaution and there has been no unique chance to the capital.

The revolt raid within the provinces of Tibesti and Kanem changed into carried out with the aid of the Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT), based totally in Libya.

The organization has a non-aggression percent with Khalifa Haftar, a military strongman who controls a good deal of Libya’s east.

FACT, a set particularly made of the Saharan Goran humans, said in a announcement Sunday that it had “liberated” the Kanem region. Such claims in faraway wasteland combat zones are hard to verify.

The Tibesti mountains close to the Libyan frontier regularly see fighting among rebels and the army, in addition to in the northeast bordering Sudan. French air moves have been needed to prevent an incursion there in February 2019.

In February 2008, a rebellion assault reached the gates of the presidential palace before being pushed back with French backing.