Chadian rebels fighting to overthrow President Idriss Déby Itno on Thursday attacked the eastern border town of Adre on the main road route into Sudan’s Darfur region, the government and rebel spokespersons said.
But while Chad’s government said the army beat back the attack by what it called ”mercenaries from Sudan”, a spokesperson for the rebel Union of Forces for Democracy and Development (UFDD) said fighting was still raging in Adre.
”The mercenaries from Sudan attacked Chad National Army positions in Adre. They have been completely defeated,” Chad’s Communications Minister Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor said.
A spokesperson for the anti-Déby UFDD told Reuters forces from several rebel groups had launched a joint assault on Adre, a frontier town located just 30km west of el-Geneina in Sudan’s conflict-torn western region of Darfur.
”Combat is taking place in Adre itself,” Ali Moussa Izzo told Reuters by satellite phone.
In recent months, several rebel groups have launched a spate of hit-and-run attacks against Chad government forces in the east in a campaign aimed at trying to end Déby’s 17-year rule in the landlocked Central African oil producer.
Déby’s government has accused neighbouring Sudan of backing the rebels, a charge denied by Khartoum. — Reuters