EU mission in ruins as Chad capital cut in two by rebels

Published on Sunday 3 February 2008 20:50

AN AMBITIOUS European Union plan to help refugees from Sudan's war-torn Darfur province lies in ruins today following a second day of heavy fighting between rebels and government forces in N'Djamena, the capital of Chad.

Rebels took over large sections of N'Djamena on Saturday after a rapid three-day "blitzkrieg" assault across more than 500 miles of territory from their bases to the east on the Sudan-Chad border.

Chad's minister of state for mines and energy, Mahamat Ali Abdallah Nassour, called an attack on the far eastern border town of Adre "a declaration of war" by Khartoum, in comments to Radio France International.

The rebels are understood to be backed by Sudan.

Spokesmen for the United Front for Democratic Change, a coalition of groups from the mainly Muslim north and east of the country, said its forces had Idriss Dby, Chad's president for the past 17 years, trapped in his palace.

International aid organisations said there were burned and hacked bodies in the streets while anti-tank and automatic weapons fire was heard around the presidential palace.

"The city is cut into two – the rebels occupy the west, and the government forces the east," said a reporter, Moumine Ngarmbassa, in N'Djamena. "People are frightened that this fighting will go on," he said by phone.

During the fighting, prisoners escaped from a jail and widespread looting was reported across the city. Foreigners were said to be fleeing the country.

"Nobody can say who will win," said Captain Christophe Prazuck, a French military spokesman in N'Djamena. France has a long-standing military presence in oil-rich Chad, a former colony, and its forces helped repulse a similar rebel assault in 2006. There are 1,400 French military in Chad, but French Air Force Mirage fighter-jets based in N'Djamena yesterday flew to Gabon, an apparent indication that Paris does not intend to intervene this time.

A high-profile casualty of the battle is the planned deployment of the high-risk European Union Force (EUFOR) peacekeeping mission, to eastern Chad. Some 3,700 EU soldiers under the mission's Irish commander, General Pat Nash, were to be deployed along Chad's eastern border with the Sudan province of Darfur to protect more than 200,000 refugees. The refugees have fled from Darfur, where more than a quarter million people have died in five years of fighting between anti-Sudanese rebels and a coalition of Sudanese armed forces and pro-government militias.

EUFOR spokesman Commandant Dan Harvey said: "The deployment is postponed until the security situation stabilises."

He added that a small advance EUFOR contingent, including eight Irish soldiers, who had arrived in the Chad capital, were safe.