Chadian authorities have announced the deaths of 19 individuals after an attempted raid by armed men on the presidential complex in the capital N’Djamena.
Reports indicate that the presidential complex was heavily guarded by security forces – raising a resistance against the 24 attackers, with 18 of them killed in addition to one member of the security forces on Wednesday evening. “There were 18 dead and six injured” among the attackers, “and we suffered one death and three injured, one of them seriously,”Chad’s foreign minister and government spokesman Abderaman Koulamallah told reporters.
Koulamallah is believed to have neutralized the unrest and restored calm to the vicinity after his appearance being armed in a video, surrounded by soldiers, saying, “The situation is completely under control … the destabilisation attempt was put down.”
The incident is said to have coincided with the visit of China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi to Chad.
China foreign minister’s meeting with Chad’s President Mahamat Idriss Deby and other senior officials was done some hours before the shooting.
Deby was in the presidential complex at the time of the attack, according to Koulamallah.
Some security sources have labelled the shooters as extremist rebels of the Boko Haram group but was later clarified by Koulamallah who said they were “probably not” rebels, describing them instead as drunken “Pieds Nickeles” – a reference to a French comic featuring hapless crooks.
