N’DJAMENA: Chad on Monday warned its traditional foe Sudan that it “reserves the legitimate right to respond” if attacked, following threats made by a senior Khartoum military official.
In a video broadcast Sunday on Al Jazeera, the deputy commander of the Sudanese forces, Yasser Al-Atta, warned that the airport in the Chadian capital N’Djamena and at Amdjarras in northeastern Chad “are legitimate targets for the Sudanese armed forces.”
The remarks “could be interpreted as a declaration of war if followed through,” Chadian foreign ministry spokesman Ibrahim Adam Mahamat said.
“Such rhetoric could lead to a dangerous escalation for the entire sub-region,” and “Chad reserves the legitimate right to respond vigorously to any attempted aggression,” he added.
“Sudan has just declared war on Chad,” declared former Chadian prime minister Saleh Kebzabo on his official Facebook page.
“We must take this very seriously, prepare for it militarily, and mobilize,” he added.
Chad has accused the Sudanese government for over six decades of doing everything it can to destabilize its neighbor, notably by “orchestrating rebellions” and supporting the Boko Haram militant group.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been torn apart by a conflict pitting General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, head of the army and de facto ruler of the country since a 2021 coup, against his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, the chief of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
At the end of October 2024, N’Djamena denied any involvement in the Sudanese conflict but Khartoum’s de facto rulers accused it of playing an active role in arms deliveries to the RSF.
The alleged support for the RSF has been highlighted in various reports — including one from the United Nations in January 2024 — but Chad has consistently denied involvement.
The presence in El Fasher in Sudan’s perennially restive Darfur region of a Zaghawa rebellion — an ethnic group also present in Chad — is N’Djamena’s main concern.
It is led by Ousman Dillo, the younger brother of Chadian opposition leader Yaya Dillo Djerou who was killed by the Chadian army.
In February 2008, a Zaghawa rebellion based in Sudan launched a lightning offensive in Chad alongside other groups, forcing former president Idriss Deby Itno to take refuge in his presidential palace, before successfully repelling the rebels with decisive support from former ruler France.
The war in Sudan since April 2023 has left tens of thousands dead, displaced more than 11 million people and created the risk of widespread famine, in what the UN considers the worst humanitarian crisis in recent times.
Two million people have also fled to neighboring countries, including 1.5 million to Chad.
Chad warns could retaliate if Sudan attacks
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Chad warns could retaliate if Sudan attacks
- Yasser Al-Atta warned that the airport in the Chadian capital N’Djamena and at Amdjarras in northeastern Chad ‘are legitimate targets for the Sudanese armed forces’
- Chad has accused the Sudanese government for over six decades of doing everything it can to destabilize its neighbor
Sequestered Suu Kyi overshadows military-run Myanmar election
- Suu Kyi’s reputation abroad has been heavily tarnished over her government’s handling of the Rohingya crisis
YANGON: Ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been siloed in military detention since a 2021 coup, but her absence looms large over junta-run polls the generals are touting as a return to democracy.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate was once the darling of foreign diplomats, with legions of supporters at home and a reputation for redeeming Myanmar from a history of iron-fisted martial rule.
Her followers swept a landslide victory in Myanmar’s last elections in 2020 but the military voided the vote, dissolved her National League for Democracy party and has jailed her in total seclusion.
As she disappeared and a decade-long democratic experiment was halted, activists rose up — first as street protesters and then as guerrilla rebels battling the military in an all-consuming civil war.
Suu Kyi’s reputation abroad has been heavily tarnished over her government’s handling of the Rohingya crisis.
But for her many followers in Myanmar, her name is still a byword for democracy, and her absence on the ballot, an indictment it will be neither free nor fair.
The octogenarian — known in Myanmar as “The Lady” and famed for wearing flowers in her hair — remains under lock and key as her junta jailers hold polls overwriting her 2020 victory. The second of the three-phase election began Sunday, with Suu Kyi’s constituency of Kawhmu outside Yangon being contested by parties cleared to run in the heavily restricted poll.
Suu Kyi has spent around two decades of her life in military detention — but in a striking contradiction, she is the daughter of the founder of Myanmar’s armed forces.
She was born on June 19, 1945, in Japanese-occupied Yangon during the final weeks of WWII.
Her father, Aung San, fought for and against both the British and the Japanese colonizers as he sought to secure independence for his country.
