An attack on Chad’s presidential palace left 18 assailants dead and six in custody, with one soldier killed and three wounded, state media reported Thursday.
No fewer than 19 people have been killed in Chad where security forces said they had prevented an attempt by armed fighters to storm the presidential complex in the capital N’Djamena.
At least 18 of a force of 24 armed men were killed in the failed assault on the president’s office on Wednesday evening, the government said, and one member of the security forces also died in the gun battles.
There were 18 dead and six injured” among the attackers “and we suffered one death and three injured, one of them seriously”, Chad’s foreign minister and government spokesman Abderaman Koulamallah said.
Hours after the shooting, Koulamallah appeared in a video, surrounded by soldiers and with a gun on his belt, saying, “The situation is completely under control … the destabilisation attempt was put down.”
The attack coincided with an official visit by China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Chad.
Hours before the shooting erupted, Wang Yi had met with Chad’s President Mahamat Idriss Deby and other senior officials.
Deby was in the presidential complex at the time of the attack, according to Koulamallah.