Chad

A Chadian court on Friday sentenced a former president and 11 rebels to death for crimes against the state, an official said. Former president Hissene Habre is currently awaiting trial in Senegal for torture and murder. A Chadian commission of inquiry concluded Habre killed tens of thousands of political opponents during his eight years in power until he was ousted by rebels in 1990.

The Security Council working group on children and armed conflict should urge Chad to take measurable, concrete steps to demobilize children from its armed forces and stop continued recruitment, Human Rights Watch has said in a letter. On September 5, 2008, the working group will discuss violations of children’s rights in Chad. The working group asked Chad to take steps to bring an end to the recruitment and use of child soldiers a year earlier, in September 2007, but government efforts to co...read more

Seventy-two people were killed in clashes between supporters of a radical Islamic preacher and police who went to arrest him in Chad, Interior Minister Ahmat Mahamat Bachir said on Wednesday. The fighting broke out on Sunday night at Kouno, 300km south-east of Ndjamena, when officials tried to stop the inflammatory sermons of the preacher on holy war and the end of the world.

Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has agreed to restore diplomatic ties with neighbouring Chad, broken off in May after a rebel attack on the Sudanese capital Khartoum, mediator Senegal said on Friday.

International aid workers have temporarily suspended their work at a village in eastern Chad following attacks on their compounds and ethnic violence, British aid agency Oxfam said on Friday.

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