At least 22 people were killed in southern Chad earlier this week in fresh clashes between nomadic herders and sedentary farmers, according to authorities, who on Wednesday accused “rebels” from the Central African Republic of starting them.
On Monday, farmers from the Kodo community attacked Fulani herder camps in Monts de Lam department, more than 600 km south of N’Djamena, Governor-General Ahmat Dari Bazine told Logone Oriental provincial AFP, who could be reached by phone. He assures that the Kodos are Chadian “rebels” based in the Central African Republic, whose border is very close.
“The Kodos killed two Fulani herders and injured six others in their camp on Monday, and they lost two of their own,” the Foulatas responded, the governor continued.
“They then attacked another village, killing four indigenous people before being pursued by gendarmes. The latter managed to shoot down 14 of them on Tuesday,” explains the general, who regrets “at least 22 dead”.
These attacks and their victims were confirmed to AFP by Hassan Khalil, the first deputy prosecutor of Baïbokoum, the capital of the Monts de Lam.
In this region, but also in these fertile areas on the borders of Chad, Cameroon and the Central African Republic, clashes are frequent, often fatal, between nomadic Muslim herdsmen and sedentary indigenous farmers, mostly Christian or animist.
The latter particularly accuse the former of plundering their fields, grazing their animals, or even settling on what they consider their land.
But this time, without independent verification, the governor accuses the Kodos of being Chadian “rebels” who have holed up in the Central African Republic to foment these ancestral conflicts. “This new strategy is being deliberately maintained by the Kodos to create problems between pastoralists and farmers, Muslims and Christians,” General Dari Bazine assures.
Authorities in Chad and the Central African Republic regularly accuse each other of maintaining their respective rebel bases on their territories, which fight armed forces on the other side of a very porous border, and which are not accepted by the various communities on their account Travel.