መጨረሻህን የኢድሪስ ዴቢን ያድርገው
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Chad’s president Idriss Déby dies after battle with rebels
President Idriss Déby Itno, the strongman leader of Chad and one of the West’s staunchest allies in the battle against jihadis in the Sahel, has been killed while visiting troops on the frontline, an army spokesman said.
The 68-year-old president sustained injuries while commanding troops fighting a rebel incursion heading for the capital N’Djamena, the spokesman said on state television.
The news came just hours after provisional results showed that Mr Déby, one of Africa’s longest-serving rulers, had extended his 30 years in power by winning a sixth term in elections earlier this month.
His death will have great implications not just for the impoverished yet oil-rich central African country, but across the region, where Chad is central to the fight against Boko Haram and other jihadist groups including those linked to Isis and al-Qaeda that operate across the Sahel. Mr Déby was a key ally for France and the US and although his son has been appointed as interim head of state, his death potentially leaves a power vacuum.
“Idriss Déby Itno has just taken his last breath in defending the sovereign nation on the battlefield,” General Azem Bermandoa Agouna said on state TV, flanked by fellow soldiers.
The circumstances of Mr Déby’s death were not yet known, although as a longtime soldier, he was known to don military fatigues to join troops on or near the frontlines of various battles and was admired by French soldiers as a kind of “Chadian Napoleon”, according to François Gaulme of Ifri, the French Institute of International Relations.
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