Killing of Chadian President Déby likely to threaten domestic and regional stability

President Idriss Déby Itno was wounded by Front pour l'Alternance et la Concorde au Tchad (FACT) militants during clashes in Chad’s Kanem province on 19 April 2021. In an address on state television channel Télé Tchad, army spokesperson General Azem Bermandoa Agouna announced that the President had been evacuated by his son, Mahamat Idriss Déby, to the capital N’Djamena on the day of the clashes, but succumbed to his injuries one day later. Following Déby’s death, the army announced that his son would lead an 18-month transitional military government. However, this was rejected by the opposition, most of which had also abstained from voting in the April election, demonstrating ongoing political schisms in the country.

FACT

FACT is a Libya-based militant group founded in 2016 as a dissident branch of the Union des forces pour la Démocratie et le Développement (UFDD) with the aim of enforcing political change in Chad. It is led by Mahamat Madhi Ali, who stated in a 2016 interview with Jeune Afrique that his main goal was to remove President Déby from power through force. Ali claimed that the group comprised 700 militants, all of Chadian nationality, and that the group’s main base was located in Chad’s Tanoua region, with a training centre of 350 men located in Djebel Saoudah in southern Libya.

FACT incursion