The leaders of Chad’s main opposition groups on Wednesday said that they had been forced into hiding over fears for their safety, following a deadly crackdown on anti-junta demonstrations.
Succes Masra, head of the Transformers party, said he was in “another country” because he was wanted by the “presidential guard.”
Max Loalngar of the Wakit Tamma political coalition said he was “hiding somewhere within the country” to avoid arrest.
Photo: AP
Both opposition figures have accused the junta of “extra-judicial killings” and mass arrests as they suppressed protests over delayed elections. Officially, about 50 people died when security forces opened fire on the demonstrators in the capital N’Djamena and several other cities last month.
However, opposition groups have said the actual toll was much higher, with unarmed civilians massacred, at least 300 people wounded and hundreds more arrested.
Masra and Loalngar said their groups have called on the International Criminal Court in The Hague to investigate alleged “crimes against humanity.”
The African Union Commission has condemned the violent repression, while Amnesty International said that a child was among the several dozen killed by the authorities’ excessive use of force.
Opposition groups had encouraged demonstrations on Oct. 20 to mark the date when the ruling military had initially promised to cede power — a timeline now extended by two years by General Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno. The 38-year-old took power from his father, Idriss Deby Itno, who ruled for 30 years before dying in an operation against rebels in April last year.
The junta has branded the protests an “insurrection” supported by foreign powers.
In the aftermath, the government made hundreds of arrests, suspended all party political activity and imposed a curfew.
Authorities said the casualties included a dozen members of the security forces.
Chadian Prime Minister Saleh Kebzabo on Tuesday said that the country had accepted the principle of an international inquiry “as soon as possible” into the protest deaths.
The following day, African Union Commission Chair Moussa Faki Mahamat — a former Chadian prime minister — said there is “urgency of a serious and credible investigation” to bring those responsible to justice.
The Chadian Convention for the Protection of Human Rights, a local civil society group, said that 600 people have been detained since Oct. 20, with most “exiled” to labor camps and prisons far from the capital.
Masra and Loalngar said the authorities had been hunting down their supporters in the past few weeks.
“Soldiers from the presidential guard came to get me at our headquarters, and when they didn’t find me, detained 27 members of my team,” Masra said.
“Only four are left alive being interrogated. The others are dead, some of those who were with them have told me, even if we don’t have the bodies,” he said. “The manhunt is ongoing across the country.”
Loalngar told a similar story.
“Security forces are going from house to house, people are being arrested for anything,” he said. “Like all our activists, I had to go into hiding.”
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