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Thousands flee Chadian capital
04/02/2008 21:08 - (SA)
Ndjamena - Thousands of civilians fled the Chadian capital on Monday, as rebels threatened a fresh offensive to oust President Idriss Deby after two days of heavy fighting saw them pull out of the city.
The government said its forces had pushed the rebels from Ndjamena, but rebel leaders insisted they had made a strategic withdrawal.
Dead bodies littered the city's streets and buildings were pockmarked with bullet holes after a weekend of fierce fighting, as Sudan denied claims by Deby that it was backing the rebellion.
General Mahamat Ali Abdallah, operational commander of government forces, said the rebels had been "completely routed".
He said: "Time is going to show that they have been defeated."
But a military source later spoke of a rebel column, comprising about 30 pick-up trucks, stationed at a northern entrance to the city.
Chadian government forces had used tanks and helicopter gun ships on Sunday to repel rebel fighters who had surrounded the presidential palace where Deby was holed up.
Waiting for civilians to leave
Rebel spokesperson Abderaman Koulamallah, contacted on Monday by satellite telephone, said the insurgency - the most serious that Deby has faced since coming to power in 1990 in this central African state - was far from over.
"We have pulled out of the city and we are waiting for the civilian population to be evacuated," said Koulamallah, adding that the rebels were surrounding the capital that is home to an estimated 700 000 people.
"We opted to leave the city, but we certainly will go back on the offensive," he said. "We're asking the civilian population of Ndjamena to leave immediately because their safety cannot be assured."
In Geneva, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said it had been told by officials on the Chadian border that people were fleeing Ndjamena "by the thousands" into neighbouring Cameroon.
"We're expecting a lot more," UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said.
A French armed forces spokesman said 839 foreigners had been evacuated from the Chadian capital to neighbouring Gabon since Saturday, while almost 300 more were still at Ndjamena Airport and a nearby French military base.
A commercial aircraft carrying 363 people including 205 French nationals landed in Paris on Monday morning from the Gabonese capital Libreville.
France, the former colonial power, has 1,450 troops based in Chad and armed forces spokesperson Major Christophe Prazuck said there had been a "brief and limited contact" between French troops and the rebels on Saturday.
No death toll has been given for the weekend fighting, but many bodies were seen in the streets, some covered in flies or plastic shrouds. The aid group Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF - Doctors Without Borders) said "hundreds" of civilians had been wounded.
In fighting on Sunday, the main Ndjamena market was looted and torched after it was hit by a missile, while the national radio station was ransacked.
Sudan denies involvement
In Khartoum, the Sudanese government denied claims by Deby's regime that it was supporting the rebels, who had crossed the width of Chad from rear bases in Sudan's remote and strife-torn Darfur region.
"What's happening in Chad is an internal matter and Sudan has nothing to do with it," said Sudan armed forces spokesperson Othman Mohammed al-Agbash, adding that claims of Sudanese warplanes supporting the rebels were "groundless".
In New York, the UN Security Council was to resume emergency talks on Monday on a declaration to condemn the rebel assault.
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