At least 40 Chadian soldiers were killed after an attack on their base on Sunday night, the president’s office said.
President Mahamat Déby has ordered an opposition team to find the culprits, according to a statement from his office.
The attack reportedly took place on an island called Barkaram, a wetland that was once covered by the waters of Lake Chad before its dramatic decline in recent decades.
No suspects in Sunday’s attack were named in a statement from the Office of the President, but the area is close to the borders of Nigeria and Niger where Islamic militants are known to operate.
Sunday’s attack is one of the worst the Chadian military has faced since 2020, when an estimated 100 soldiers were killed during a raid by then-President Idriss Déby to launch a campaign against Islamist militants.
Local residents told AFP they believed Boko Haram militants – an Islamist militant group based on the border with Nigeria – were responsible for the latest attack, and said at least 200 soldiers were guarding the army at the time.
It is a blow to President Déby, a veteran soldier by training, and the son of a former president who was killed three years ago in a battle with rebels near the Libyan border.
In its public talks, the Office of the President of Chad presented Déby as a participating leader and nous of the military, who visited the site of the attack on Monday morning, “assessing the situation on the ground, honoring the dead soldiers, showing his compassion to the wounded, and raising the spirit of his brothers in arms.”
The Lake Chad area is bordered by Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria – all of which are part of the Multinational Joint Task Force that seeks to eliminate armed groups operating in the region.
But Islamists “often regroup when troops withdraw”, and better funding and planning is needed, the International Crisis Group said.
In recent years, there have been several coups in the region, in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso. Militants in each country have cited the inability to deal with the threat of Islamic militants as one of the reasons for the overthrow of federal governments.
Commentator Paul Melly writes that, surrounded by many regional problems, Chad stands out as an island of continued stable relations with the West – and now it is deepening relations with Russia in a strategy that irritates and pressures France and the US.
Chad has also become a major conduit for weapons flowing into Sudan, and hosts large numbers of refugees from the country’s civil war in camps near its eastern border.
More BBC news on Chad:
Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.
Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfricaon Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica
