Chad's President Mahamat Deby Itno has vowed to track down the assailants who killed at least 40 soldiers in an attack on a military base in Chad's Lake region.
According to the government and local sources, an attack by the jihadist group Boko Haram on the Chadian army killed around 40 people overnight Sunday near the Nigerian border.
In a statement, the Chadian presidency said the attack struck near Ngouboua in the west of the country, "tragically leaving about 40 people dead".
President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno visited the scene early on Monday – a garrison housing more than 200 soldiers – and launched an operation "to go after the attackers and track them down in their furthest hideouts", the statement added.
The attack reportedly struck at 10:00 pm local time, when Boko Haram members took control of the garrison, seized weapons, burnt vehicles equipped with heavy arms, and left.
Jihadist insurgency
A vast expanse of water and swamps, Lake Chad's countless islets serve as hideouts for jihadist groups, such as Boko Haram and its offshoot Islamic State in West Africa, who make regular attacks on the countries' army and civilians.
Boko Haram launched an insurgency in Nigeria in 2009, leaving more than 40,000 people dead and displacing two million, and the organisation has since spread to neighbouring countries.
In March 2020, the Chadian army suffered its biggest ever one-day losses in the region, when around 100 troops died in a raid on the lake's Bohoma peninsula.
The attack prompted then-president Idriss Deby Itno – the current president's father – to launch an anti-jihadist offensive.
Epicentre of terrorism
In June, the International Office for Migration recorded more than 220,000 people displaced by attacks from armed groups in Lake Chad province.
Chad is an important ally for French and US forces aiming to fight jihadists in the Sahel, which has become the epicentre of global terrorism under attack by factions loyal to al Qaeda and Islamic State.
Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso have ended military operations with the US and France in recent years and have turned to Russia for support instead.
(with newswires)
