Chad's president has held on for almost three decades through brutality and military cunning. His rule is precarious
, a 65-year-old Chadian villager, remembers when he could sail across Lake Chad to visit markets and relatives. His village used to be rich with thousands of cattle, he says. But three years ago, jihadists from Boko Haram attacked and took everything. “They just killed people. We don’t know why,” he says, fiddling with his prayer beads. “The government has done nothing to help us.”
In February three columns of Toyota pickup trucks packed with Chadian rebels sped out of the desert from Libya towards N’Djamena, Chad’s capital. The rebels were led by Mr Déby’s cousin and were largely disgruntled members of the president’s ethnic group, the Zaghawa. At Chad’s request, French warplanes from Barkhane, France’s anti-jihadist force in the Sahel, strafed the rebels for three days.
There has been less of that available since the sharp decline in oil prices in 2014. Big international debts give the government little room for manoeuvre. Civil-servant and army salaries have been cut. Income per person fell from $1,200 in 2014 to $810 in 2017, according to the. “Life is much harder now. Outside the capital, lots of people are struggling and there is serious discontent,” says Marielle Debos, the author of “Living by the Gun in Chad”.
But today Mr Déby’s army is overstretched. A new wave of attacks by Boko Haram and Islamic State of West Africa has hit the Lake Chad Basin. Analysts say the new attackers are better trained and better armed than they were in the past. And while the Chadian army is good at fighting outside the country, inside it is less effective. According to Ms Debos, the need for France’s intervention showed that some high-ranking officers were unwilling to fight their kith and kin among the rebels.
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