African mediators were expected yesterday in the oil-rich capital N'Djamena from where tens of thousands of people have fled as rebels renewed their most forceful attempt yet to oust Chadian President Idriss Deby.
The fighting in N'Djamena threatened to further destabilize an already violent swath of Africa that is home to hundreds of thousands of refugees and borders Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region.
Hours after the rebels went back on the attack on Monday, the UN Security Council authorized France and other nations to help Chad's government. France has 1,800 soldiers backed by fighter jets in its former colony.
France is ready to launch a military operation in Chad against rebels there if necessary, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said yesterday.
"If France must do its duty, it will do so," Sarkozy said in response to a question on a possible military operation in Chad. "Let no one doubt it."
Sarkozy said French troops have taken no part in the fighting -- except last Friday night, when they opened fire to protect French civilians. He said that was a case of self-defense.
Sarkozy dismissed as "absolutely not exact" rebel claims that French forces had killed civilians.
However, Sarkozy insisted it would be better to "leave Chad alone."
"If Chad were a victim of an aggression, France would have -- and I stress the conditional tense -- the means to resist this action," he said.
High-level officials and diplomats from the Republic of Congo and Libya were to arrive yesterday on an African Union mediation mission, the republic's Foreign Affairs Minister Basile Ikouebe said on Monday in Brazzaville. They would meet with both sides, and France had agreed to protect the mediators, he said.
There were fears of a wider regional conflict. Chadian officials have repeatedly accused Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir of supporting the rebels, and even deploying Sudanese troops in rebel offensives in eastern Chad.
"We are in direct war with Omar Bashir," General Mahamat Ali Abdallah Nassour said yesterday on Radio France Internationale. "It is Omar al-Bashir who wants to destabilize and Balkanize Chad."
The US asked Sudan to halt any possible aid to the rebels and use its influence "to tell them to withdraw," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said on Monday.
"We have gone in at very high levels of the Sudanese government to say that if there is any support from the Sudanese government to these rebels that that should end immediately," he said.
Ikouebe said the mediators also would be talking to Sudan.
"If any state were suspected of implication in the Chad crisis, we would have words with that state," he said.
The fighting in N'Djamena was believed to have taken a heavy toll. Bodies lay on the streets and the hulks of burned out tanks and other vehicles stood abandoned.
The death toll was not known, but "probably many people were injured or killed," said a French military spokesman, Captain Christophe Prazuck.
"The fighting was heavy, the weapons used were heavy," he said.
Isabelle Defourny, head of Chad operations for the French organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) said hundreds of people had been reported wounded.
She said fighting made it difficult to reach the wounded, but the group's doctors had treated about 70 wounded people since Saturday.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in