About a hundred people were killed a week ago when clashes broke out between gold miners in an isolated area covered mainly by a desert in northern Chad, which borders Libya and where lawlessness prevails.
The episodes started on May 23, due to “dispute for an insignificant reason” between two gold minerswhich “erupted”, said by phone General Daoud Yaya Brahim, Chad’s Minister of Defense.
The minister went to the area a few days after the massacres, leading a strong army force. The armed forces are rarely deployed in this area.
Clashes between various groups of gold miners had resulted in “about a hundred dead and at least forty injured,” the minister summed up.
Tibesti, an inaccessible, deserted area with vast mountain ranges, is littered with gold mines, which often operate without the permission of the authorities. Thousands of gold miners have gone there from all over the country and from neighboring countries – Libya, Niger, Sudan … – despite the hostile climate and the fact that the region is practically out of control by the authorities.
Last Wednesday, Communications Minister Abderaman Koulamala said in a press release that the clashes, which broke out 1,000 kilometers northeast of the capital, resulted in “loss of human life and several injuries”, without going into further details.
“This is not the first time we have had clashes between gold miners in the area and we have decided to suspend all gold mining in Kouri until further notice, knowing that the vast majority of them are illegal,” said General Brahim. Mauritania and Libya.
“It all started because of a quarrel between two people from different communities that escalated. The government sent forces to stop the riots, which shot at people. “According to our information, there are at least 200 dead,” Mahamat Nour Ibendou, chairman of the Commission Nationale des Droits de l’Homme (CNDH), told AFP. this.
The opposition Transformers party and the most powerful armed movement, the Chad Front for Change and Unity (FACT), also claimed 200 lives. “The defense and security forces did not shoot anyone at all” and “there are no 200 dead,” the defense minister said.
Far West
A rebel group operating in the region, the Council of Military Command for the Salvation of the Republic (CCMSR), for its part, said in a statement on Monday that the “massacre” took place “under complicit gaze of law enforcement forces “.
“It is a hostile area, almost completely lawless, it is Far West, the whole world is over there because there is gold,” and “conflicts are erupting,” Communications Minister Koulamalas told AFP on Wednesday.
Deadly clashes between Arabs from Libya and residents of Wandai (west) had claimed the lives of dozens of people in Kouri in January 2019.
Tibesti is a historically troubled region, the cradle of several large-scale armed uprisings since Chad’s independence in 1960. Since gold was discovered there in 2012, mines in the province have attracted traders, thousands of goldsmiths, soldiers and members of the armed opposition. , which seek to secure revenue from the precious metal.
Thousands of poor young people from central Chad, who work in the mines in groups, gathered in the area in extremely difficult conditions and in constant insecurity.
Chad has been ruled by a military junta under the young general Mahamat Idris Debi Itno since April 20, 2021, when the army announced the death of its father, President Idris Debi Itno, on a guerrilla front. President Idris Debbie has been in power in the African country for thirty years.
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