Source : Sahel weather January 2025

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A few hours after the visit of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, heavy gunfire was heard on the evening of January 8 in the center of N'Djamena, near the presidency. Some twenty assailants attempted to attack the presidential compound in the Djambel Bahr district. According to government spokesman Abderaman Koulamalla, the attack was an "attempt to destabilize (...) young people from a district of Ndjamena and from a Chadian community".

Ruling out the possibility of terrorism, he tried to put the incident into perspective. "On the face of it, it has nothing to do with Boko Haram (...) If there were no deaths, it would make you smile, because it's a bunch of nickel-and-diming gangs who came with wire cutters, knives, no weapons of war", he asserted. He continued: "There's nothing to panic about. There's no threat to the security of our country (...) It's really an epiphenomenon that we'll soon forget." Reacting to the incident, President Mahamat Idriss Déby said that "the assailants in this vain attempt were aiming to vitrify [him]." According to the government, the attack left 20 dead: 18 of the assailants and two soldiers. An investigation into the incident has been entrusted to the public prosecutor.

France out, Turkey in?

Meanwhile, January saw the end of a century-long French military presence in Chad. On January 11, the military base in Abéché - the country's third most populous city - was officially handed back by France. Just over two weeks later, on January 30, the Adji Kosseï base in Ndjamena was handed over. The last 180 soldiers left Chadian soil on the same day. It was on the runway of this base that Chad celebrated the official end of the French military presence in the country the following morning. Another sign of the divorce between France and Chad was the reaction of the Chadian President, who described the remarks made by French President Emmanuel Macron as "remarks bordering on contempt for Africa and Africans". Macron had lamented the "ingratitude" of African heads of state, who he claimed had "forgotten" to "say thank you" when France intervened militarily in the Sahel in 2013.

At the same time, RFI reports, Turkish drones will be installed at the Faya-Largeau base in the north of the country, where Turkey already has a presence, and probably soon at the Abeche base. This is not, however, a full-scale military presence, as the source points out, "but rather technicians, specialists in charge of operating the Bayraktar aerial drones acquired by Chad. The personnel deployed in Faya-Largeau are therefore drone pilots or Bayraktar employees.

Déby, the country's leader more than ever?

Unsurprisingly, the ruling party won the legislative elections held on December 29, 2024, which were boycotted by part of the opposition. The Mouvement patriotique du salut (MPS) won an absolute majority of seats in the new National Assembly: 124 out of a total of 188. A week after the publication of these results by the Constitutional Court, President Déby was appointed national president of the ruling party on January 30, at the ^13th MPS congress. Until then, he had only been honorary president. On the eve of this distinction, the opposition Succès Masra said he was ready to work with President Déby. "We are ready to work with the President of the Republic, Marshal Mahamat Idriss Déby, to bring the added value of our political force to this meeting, which is a republican meeting in the service of the Chadian people", he declared. A curious call, to say the least, given that the former Prime Minister's party boycotted the recent legislative elections.