N’Djamena: At least 62 people were killed and hundreds other injured in series of protest demanding a transition to democracy. Demonstrators had gathered in N’Djamena to mark the date when the military initially promised to hand over power. Newly appointed Prime-Minister Saleh Kebzabo alleged some of the protesters were armed.
At least 50 people were killed in clashes between security forces and anti-government protestors in Chad. pic.twitter.com/XD7HUEWORU
— DW News (@dwnews) October 24, 2022
Reports from western media sources suggest Chadian security forces have opened fire on anti-government demonstrators in the country’s two largest cities killing dozens of people.
Chadian government spokesman Aziz Mahamat Saleh said 30 people were dead in the capital, N’Djamena. Organizers of the march, however, placed the toll higher, at 40 on Thursday.
A further 32 protesters were killed in Chad’s second-largest city, Moundou, according to an official in the city’s morgue. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said more than 60 people were wounded.
At the main hospital in N’Djamena, overwhelmed doctors tended to scores of people with gunshot wounds.
Authorities later imposed an overnight curfew in Chad’s capital, N’Djamena, and other towns, in the wake of violent clashes between pro-democracy protesters and security forces.
Meanwhile, Qatar has called for “restraint” in Chad amid violent crackdowns on anti-government protests on Thursday that followed an extension to the country’s power-transition period. In a statement the other day, Qatar’s foreign ministry said it was following the latest developments “with great concern”, calling on all sides to “avoid escalation, exercise maximum restraint” and “resort to the voice of reason”.
