|
France behind Deby
06/02/2008 08:29 - (SA)
N'Djamema - France threw its weight behind Chad's President Idriss Deby on Tuesday, saying it could intervene against armed rebels whose weekend attack on the capital threatened to trigger a fresh humanitarian crisis.
After obtaining United Nations Security Council backing for Deby's government, French President Nicolas Sarkozy warned the rebels that France would "do its duty" and had the means to respond to any unlawful attack against its former colony.
France had more than 1 000 troops, as well as aircraft, stationed in Chad, which had given logistical and intelligence support to Deby's army in its fight against the rebels.
Chad had accused Sudan of supporting an offensive by the rebels, who stormed into the capital of the oil-producing central African country at the weekend before withdrawing after two days of fighting. Khartoum denied backing the rebels.
50 000 people flee
The city was calm on Tuesday. Ambulances collected the dead, although witnesses said some bodies still lay in central avenues. Some streets bore the scars of bullets and shells.
Fearing fresh attacks, more than 50 000 people fled south from N'Djamena into northern Cameroon across the bridge over the Longone-Chari River.
Thousands more were displaced in and around N'Djamena and food and clean water were running short.
"I'm deeply concerned that we're seeing another serious humanitarian crisis developing," said Louis Michel, European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid.
He announced in Brussels that the European Commission had set aside $2.96m in humanitarian funding to help meet the needs of refugees, displaced people and other vulnerable groups hit by violence in the west and east of Chad.
Rebels accept ceasefire
The United States also appealed for an end to the conflict in Chad, where a US-led consortium had been extracting oil since 2003.
"What we have called for is the rebels to withdraw ... (and for) the Sudanese government, if they are providing support for the rebels, to withdraw that support," US State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack said in Washington.
Rebel leaders, responding to African Union mediation efforts, offered to accept a ceasefire.
But at least one rebel spokesperson said this was conditional on Deby ending his 18-year rule over the country, which critics said was corrupt and dictatorial.
Chadian Prime Minister Nouradine Delwa Kassire Coumakoye dismissed talk of a truce. "A ceasefire, why? We'd agree a ceasefire with who?" he said.
Amnesty International demanded that Deby's government reveal the whereabouts of four leading opposition figures it said were arrested at their homes by security forces on Sunday.
It said they were at risk of being "tortured or forcibly disappeared".
- Reuters
|
News
