No image available
/ 30 October 2007
Chadian authorities charged nine French nationals on Tuesday with abduction and fraud after they were detained trying to fly 103 African children to Europe to live with families, Chad’s government said. A Chadian prosecutor said the French faced five to 20 years of hard labour if convicted in the landlocked African country.
No image available
/ 10 September 2007
A series of devastating attacks in which armed men loot homes, kill unarmed civilians and burn down villages has pushed an entire population into hiding in remote areas of the north-western Central African Republic. Villagers have fled their homes and taken to the bush, living in the forests to avoid further attacks.
The village of Korosigna in northern Central African Republic is barely recognisable to those who once lived there. Every house is either demolished, abandoned or burned to the ground. Weeds and bushes have taken hold. Many homes are barely visible as the forest has moved in and engulfed the ruins.
Bertin Wafio sits in a village clearing sipping tea from a flask, his teenage bodyguards self-consciously examining their ancient rifles and wearily scanning the horizon. ”We have been in the bush for two years now, fighting to bring peace and security to our country,” said Wafio, one of the leaders of Central African Republic’s Popular Army for the Restoration of the Republic and Democracy.
Mariam Khamis Adam is huddled on the floor, using giant marker pens to draw a picture of her childhood memories. ”These are flowers,” she says, ”and this is the Janjaweed killing my older brother. This is my other brother, he ran from the house and survived. Later he died of illness.”
The European Union agreed to a deal this week that will see a joint United Nations-EU force of up to 3 000 personnel deployed to eastern Chad to manage the continuing insecurity along the border with Darfur. It is hoped that the force will be deployed as early as October, especially after Chad’s President, Idriss Deby Itno, publicly accepted the deployment of foreign troops during a recent visit to France.
Chad’s government does not want a United Nations military peacekeeping force deployed in its violent east because it fears its neighbours may see these foreign troops as a threat, the prime minister said on Monday. A UN mission is in Chad to try to persuade the country to accept a robust UN military force.
As the sun rises in Zakouma National Park, Nicolai Taloua loads his Kalashnikov with familiar ease. At his feet sit two metal ammunition boxes packed with bullets. Others around him are busy mounting a machine gun on to the roof of their car. For Nicolai this is a perfectly normal start to his working day, all part and parcel of the ongoing war between park rangers and elephant poachers. "It’s a dangerous life, but one we’ve accepted," says Nicolai.
Chad pledged on Wednesday to work to demobilise hundreds of child soldiers fighting in the ranks of the government army and rebel groups across the conflict-torn Central African country. President Idriss Déby Itno’s government made the commitment in an agreement signed with the United Nations children’s agency, Unicef.
No image available
/ 17 February 2007
Under the blazing desert sun, the charred remains of the village of Bandala in eastern Chad lie scattered. Once home to hundreds of people, Bandala is now nothing more than scorched earth and broken pots, littered unceremoniously across the sand.