| schema:articleBody
| - Northern Chad is a restive region and a breeding ground for rebel groups which oppose the N'Djamena authorities. A lawless zone abandoned to illegal gold miners and gangs of traffickers, the troubled Sahel region is scarcely populated and difficult to control. The region has close links with neighbouring southern Libya, from where it sources most of its food, than with the rest of Chad. But it also in southern Libya that numerous Chadian rebel groups have, for decades, set up base and launched incursions. Northern Chad's Borkou, Ennedi and Tibesti highlands are a vast desert zone believed to be rich in precious metals. It is from this area that rebels from the Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT) launched a major incursion on April 11, the day of the election at which President Idriss Deby Itno secured a sixth term. According to the army, several columns of heavily armed vehicles rolled in from Libya, attacking a customs post at the border in the province of Tibesti, some 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from the capital. Last weekend Deby, who himself came to power in 1990 at the head of a rebel force which rolled into the capital, had gone to the region to lead the fighting. He died on Monday of injuries sustained. Based in Libya where it has a non-aggression pact with Khalifa Haftar, the military strongman of the country's east, FACT emerged in April 2016 from the split of the Union for Democracy and Development (UFDD) group. On Tuesday, following Deby's death, FACT vowed to pursue its offensive and to march on the capital. Chad's military had previously claimed to have "destroyed" the rebels after more than a week of fighting, saying on Monday that it had killed more than 300 and captured 150. The Chadian army also hunted down in the Tibesti mountains The rebel Movement for Democracy and Justice in Chad (MDJT) for 10 years between 1993 and 2003. In August 2018 rebels from the Military Command Council for the Salvation of the Republic (CCMSR), crossed into Tibesti from Libya in about 100 armed vehicles. The Chadian authorities repelled that attack and launched a crackdown. France stepped in at N'Djamena's request in February 2019, carrying out airstrikes to stop rebels from the Union of Resistance Forces (UFR) who had also crossed over from Libya in a bid to oust Deby. Northeastern Chad, which borders Sudan, is also a flashpoint between Chadian rebels and the army. In 2008, rebels, who had rolled in from support bases in Sudan, crossed into Chad from east to west to reach the capital. They got as far as the presidential palace, but were pushed back with backing from France, which provided ammunition and decisive intelligence. acm/jmy/mw/pvh
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)