By MICHELLE FAUL, Associated Press
NAIROBI, Kenya - Tanks rolled through Chad's capital on Sunday, turning the
streets into a battle zone between the government and rebels littered with
bodies. Fighting also raged in an area where some 420,000 refugees live near the
border with Darfur.
Chad and its former colonizer, France, accused Sudan of masterminding the
coup attempt in the oil-rich Central African nation. Sudan has repeatedly
denied any involvement in the fighting.
Hundreds of rebels penetrated the capital of Chad on Saturday. The violence
has endangered a $300 million global aid operation supporting millions of
people in Chad, a country about three times the size of California. It also has
delayed the deployment of a European Union peacekeeping mission to both Chad
and neighboring Central African Republic.
France accused Sudan of wanting to crush President Idriss Deby's regime
ahead of the arrival of the EU force, which is to operate along the volatile
border with Darfur.
The force was to be based in the area of the key eastern town of Adre, which
rebels said they seized on Sunday. The government said it had repelled the
attack. Adre, near the border with Darfur, is a humanitarian hub surrounded by
camps with some 420,000 refugees from Darfur and Chadians displaced in the
spillover from the violence.
Chadian Gen. Mahamat Ali Abdallah Nassour alleged that Sudanese troops were
involved and called it a "declaration of war" from Sudan.
"Sudan does not want this force because it would open a window on the
genocide in Darfur," Chad's Foreign Minister Amad Allam-Mi said on Radio France
Internationale.
In a statement Sunday, Sudan's Foreign Ministry spokesman Ali al-Sadeq said
"we would like to stress that Sudan does not provide any assistance to any
side" in Chad.
"Any developments in Chad reflect on Sudan and any instability there would
have a negative impact on Sudan," he said.
The U.S. Embassy in N'Djamena said Sunday it was temporarily closing and
relocating all of its operations and remaining staff to the airport. It had
authorized the departure of its nonessential staff. The United Nations also said
it was temporarily evacuating its staff.
French soldiers in N'Djamena began evacuating foreigners on Saturday night,
and nearly 400 had left by midday Sunday, said a French military spokesman,
Capt. Christophe Prazuck.
One foreign aid worker described the scene in N'Djamena on Sunday as "bloody
and chaotic" with bodies littering the streets and looters breaking into
shops during lulls in the fighting. Gunfire could be heard coming from the area
around the presidential palace, said the aid worker, who spoke on the
condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk with reporters.
The death toll from the fighting was not known. But the French organization
Medecins sans Frontieres reported they had operated on about 50 wounded people
— only one a combatant — since Saturday at a hospital in the capital. A
spokesman in Paris said the Chadian Red Cross had told MSF doctors that they had
counted about 200 wounded. The civilians had been hit by stray bullets, MSF
said.
Hundreds of people are fleeing the fighting, crossing the Chari River to
Kousseri, in neighboring Cameroon. Helene Caux with the U.N. refugee agency said
at least 400 had crossed and "people are still coming." She said her agency
needed to confirm the refugees were civilians with no fighters among them.
The rebels arrived Friday on the capital's outskirts in about 250 pickup
trucks mounted with machine guns after a three-day push across the desert from
Chad's eastern border with Sudan. The entered the city early Saturday, quickly
spreading through the streets.
The fighting resumed around dawn Sunday, a French military spokesman said,
and government forces were using tanks and helicopter gunships to try to repel
the rebels, who were battling back with assault weapons, rocket-propelled
grenades and machine guns.
Several international workers in the Darfur town of el-Geneina in Sudan
confirmed that Chadian rebels had left their nearby bases in recent days and were
reported to have crossed into Chad. They spoke on condition of anonymity
because of the sensitivity of the issue.
French and U.S. statements condemning the coup attempt have referred to the
rebels coming from outside the country.
Rebel spokesman Abderaman Koulamallah claimed Deby was trapped at his
presidential palace, surrounded by tanks and armored vehicles, and that they
controlled the rest of the city after two days of fierce fighting.
"Nobody can say who will win," said Prazuck, the French military spokesman.
France offered to whisk Deby out of Chad, Defense Minister Herve Morin said
Sunday. Deby apparently refused to flee.
Chad has been convulsed by civil wars and invasions since independence from
France in 1960. The recent discovery of oil has only increased the intensity
of the power struggles in the largely desert country, and another Chadian
rebel group launched a failed assault on N'Djamena in 2006.
The rebels currently fighting in the city are a coalition of three groups.
The biggest is led by Mahamat Nouri, a former diplomat who defected 16 months
ago. They others are led Timan Erdimi, a nephew of Deby who was his chief of
staff and the third is a breakaway from Nouri's group headed by Adelwahid
Aboud. They have long been fighting to overthrow Deby, whom they accuse of
corruption.
The rebels are also angry with the president for not providing what they
consider enough support to insurgents in Sudan's Darfur region, some of whom are
from Deby's own tribe, the Zaghawa, who are found in both Chad and Sudan.
Deby, who came to power at the head of a rebellion in 1990, has won
elections since, but none deemed free or fair. He brought a semblance of peace after
three decades of civil war and an invasion by Libya, but became increasingly
isolated.
The most recent rebellions in Chad began in 2005 in the east, erupting at
the same time as Darfur conflict in Sudan. More than 200,000 people have died in
five years of fighting between ethnic African tribes and Sudanese government
forces and 2.5 million have been driven from their homes.
___
Associated Press writers Angela Doland in Paris, Alexander G. Higgins in
Geneva, Alfred de Montesquiou in Khartoum, Sudan and Matthew Rosenberg in
Nairobi contributed to this report.
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