Chad’s President Déby dies hours after winning new term

AP | Idriss Déby, president of Chad, was killed while visiting troops battling a northern rebel group, an army spokesman announced on Tuesday.

The stunning announcement came just hours after electoral officials had declared Déby, 68, the winner of the April 11 presidential election, paving the way for him to stay in power for 6 more years. He had campaigned on a promise of bringing peace and security to the region, but his pledges were undermined by the rebel incursion.

An 18-month transitional council will lead the country, the military said, also imposing a nightly curfew of 6 p.m.

“In the face of this worrying situation, the people of Chad must show their attachment to peace, to stability and to national cohesion,” Gen. Azem Bermandoa Agouma said.

The circumstances of Déby’s death could not immediately be independently confirmed due to the remote location of the fighting.

Déby, a former army commander-in-chief, first came to power in 1990 when his rebel forces overthrew then-President Hissène Habré, who was later convicted of human rights abuses at an international tribunal in Senegal.

Over the years Déby had survived numerous armed rebellions and managed to stay in power until this latest insurgency led by a group calling itself the Front for Change and Concord in Chad.

The government had sought Monday to assure concerned residents that the offensive was over.

Déby was a major French ally in the fight against Islamic extremism in Africa, hosting the base for the French military Operation Barkhane and supplying critical troops to the peacekeeping effort in northern Mali.