Attack On Chad Military Base Kills At Least 40 Soldiers

At least 40 Chadian soldiers have been killed after their base was attacked on Sunday evening, the presidency has said.

President Mahamat Déby has ordered a counter-mission to track down the culprits, according to a statement from his office.

The attack reportedly happened on an island called Barkaram, in a vast marshy region that was once covered by the waters of Lake Chad before its dramatic shrinking in recent decades.

No suspects for Sunday’s attack are named in the presidency’s statement, but the area is close to the border zones of Nigeria and Niger where Islamist militants are known to operate, reports the BBC.

Sunday’s attack is one of the worst suffered by Chadian soldiers since 2020, when about 100 soldiers died in a raid which prompted then-President Idriss Déby to launch an operation against Islamist militants.