Nearly 40 people were killed in clashes between Chad’s security forces and armed raiders who attacked two eastern villages, burning homes and mutilating their victims, the government said on Tuesday.
Communications Minister Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor said the villages of Aradibe and Habile were attacked at the weekend by ”Janjaweed”, the term usually used to designate Arab militia raiders who operate from Sudan’s violence-torn Darfur region.
The victims included 15 Chadian civilians, five Sudanese refugees and eight government soldiers who had their eyes gouged out, Doumgor said. One Chadian civilian was burned to death and another disembowelled by the attackers, he said.
”The two villages were partially burned down,” the minister said in his statement, adding that nine of the attackers were killed and four taken prisoner.
The attacks took place near the Sudan border, west of Koukou Angarana, where the United Nations runs a refugee camp for Sudanese refugees from Darfur.
Eastern Chad has suffered a wave of violence in recent months, including Janjaweed raids and inter-communal clashes between Arabs and non-Arabs, which have killed hundreds, as well as attacks by Chadian rebels opposed to President Idriss Déby. — Reuters