Prime minister Saleh Kebzabo has announced a curfew following Thursday’s deadly protests in cities across Chad including the capital, N’Djamena where several people were killed, apparently shot by security forces.
He said the curfew will last from 6pm to 6am and will be maintained until “order is fully restored” in N’Djamena, Moundou, Doba and Koumra, which were the scenes of violent demonstrations against the extension of the transition period.
Media sources say the transitional Prime Minister, Saleh Kebzabo has also announced the suspension of all activities of political parties including Les Transformateurs, the Socialist Party without Borders (PSF) and Wakit Tamma.
“Legal proceedings will be initiated against the leaders of these political groups, the head of government promised, claiming that an “insurrection aimed at taking power by force instead of a march” was being staged.
He reported a provisional death toll of about fifty, while earlier in the day, government spokesman, Aziz Mahamat Saleh, spoke of thirty fatalities, including ten members of the security forces.
Reacting to the demonstrations, the Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT) condemned the killings in the central African country.
In a statement, “the FACT strongly condemned these killings of peaceful demonstrators whose only crime is to have used their constitutional right to demonstrate. For the Chadian politico-military group,” the perpetrators of these crimes must be identified and brought to justice.
The rebel group led by Mahamat Mahdi Ali, a long-time opponent of the late Idriss Déby Itno, appealed to the international community to support the Chadian people in their struggle for freedom and democracy “in the face of a junta that has reneged on its commitments that allowed it to escape international sanctions by breaking the constitutional order.”
The FACT stated that it would continue to follow the situation very closely while reaffirming “its unreserved support for the Chadian people in struggle and welcomes its general mobilisation which has definitively changed the side of fear.”
The African Union and the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs also condemned the deadly violence.
Opposition parties and civil society organisations had called for demonstrations in protest at the extension of the transition decided on Saturday October 8 by the National Sovereign and Inclusive Dialogue (DNIS).
This allows General Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, who came to power in April 2021 after the death of his father in an army counter-offensive against FACT rebels, to remain in power for another 24 months.
The conclusions of these national consultations also offer Deby the possibility of running in the next presidential election.
ARD/te/lb/as/APA