Somali officials on Monday urged tough action against pirates holding a French yacht after an elite French army unit was placed on standby to intervene if negotiations failed. The local governor in Somalia’s breakaway northern region of Puntland, Musa Ghelle Yusuf, said he would be "happy … to see the pirates killed".
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/ 29 February 2008
France will renegotiate all its defence accords with African countries, President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Thursday in a move that could scale back France’s military support for some of its closest allies. France has defence cooperation agreements with several former colonies under which its forces provide varying degrees of military assistance.
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/ 8 February 2008
Residents of Chad’s curfew-bound capital, Ndjamena, did their best on Friday to resume normal life amid the ruins of a rebel attack and mounting protests over arbitrary arrests and alleged summary executions. The Chadian army said the rebels who were driven back from Ndjamena had withdrawn to Mongo, 400km east of the city.
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/ 7 February 2008
Chadian President Idriss Déby Itno said on Thursday he was willing to pardon six French aid workers convicted of trying to fly more than 100 children out of the country, now serving their jail terms in France. ”I am ready to pardon them,” Déby told French radio Europe 1.
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/ 6 February 2008
Chad’s government is in total control of the country after beating off a rebel offensive, President Idriss Déby Itno said on Wednesday. Making his first public appearance since rebels attacked the capital, Ndjamena, on the weekend, Déby accused the president of neighbouring Sudan of backing the rebel offensive.
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/ 5 February 2008
It is hoped that four more South Africans will be airlifted from Chad to Gabon on Tuesday, the Department of Foreign Affairs said. The four South Africans were already at the French military base in Chad’s capital Ndjamena. Three other South Africans remained stranded and were still hoping to fly out of the country.
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/ 5 February 2008
The United Nations Security Council on Monday unanimously condemned the rebel attacks in Chad and urged world support for the embattled government as the insurgents threatened a new assault on the capital. A statement drafted by France, Chad’s former colonial ruler, "strongly condemns these attacks and all attempts at destabilisation by force".
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/ 4 February 2008
Thousands of civilians fled Chad’s capital Ndjamena on Monday after rebel forces pulled back from a two-day assault, but the rebels said they would attack again to try to topple President Idriss Déby Itno, whose government said it had beaten off more than 2 000 insurgents.
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/ 4 February 2008
Resolutions at the United Nations or African Union could alter the mission of French troops in Chad, France’s Foreign Minister said on Monday as a first planeload of evacuees landed at a Paris airport. Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and Defence Minister Herve Morin said French forces secured Chad’s airbases and were protecting French and foreign civilians.
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/ 3 February 2008
Fierce fighting with tanks and helicopter strikes rocked the capital of Chad for a second day on Sunday as rebels surrounded President Idriss Déby Itno in his palace and hundreds of foreigners fled the country. International aid organisations reported bodies in the streets and hundreds of people wounded.
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/ 3 February 2008
General Mahamat Nouri, the main leader of Chadian rebels in control of large parts of the capital, Ndjamena, has accepted a ceasefire proposed by Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi, Libyan news agency Jana reported. The rebels seized Ndjamena on Saturday after intense fighting with government forces.
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/ 2 February 2008
Rebels seized Chad’s capital, Ndjamena, on Saturday after intense fighting with government forces, military and rebel sources said, as President Idriss Déby Itno remained holed up in the presidential palace. ”The whole of the city is in the hands of the rebels. It’s down to mopping-up operations,” said a military source.