According to state media on Thursday, an attack on Chad’s presidential palace killed 18 attackers, left six in custody, and injured one soldier.
Mahamat Deby Itno, the president of Chad, was inside the palace when the attack happened on Wednesday night, but officials said it was swiftly contained.
“Everything is under total control. “There is no fear,” Foreign Affairs Minister Abderaman Koulamallah declared in a live Facebook broadcast captured late Wednesday inside what looked to be a peaceful presidential palace, surrounded by soldiers.
Koulamallah commended the palace guards’ alertness in an interview with state television, characterizing the assailants as ill-prepared and impaired by drugs and alcohol. He said that since the attackers were young people from the capital, N’Djamena, the attack was most likely not terrorism.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited the country on the same day as the attack and congratulated Deby Itno on restoring constitutional order.
Online rumors immediately circulated that the attack was carried out by the Islamic militant group Boko Haram.
In the northeastern region of Nigeria, Boko Haram, which began an insurgency against Western education more than ten years ago, is working to impose Islamic law. Cameroon, Niger, and Chad are among the neighboring West African nations where the insurgency has spread.
Before and after a contentious presidential election in which Deby Itno won, Chad, a nation of almost 18 million people, was in the throes of political unrest. He had served as the nation’s acting president during the military takeover that ensued after his father’s passing in 2021.
