“It's an execution, they shot him at close range to execute him because he had become a nuisance. » The party of Yaya Dillo Djérou, the main opponent in Chad, accused the military of “executing at close range” its leader on Wednesday in an attempt to force him out of the presidential race. The election takes place in two months and should pit him against his cousin General Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, the junta chief. The government has rejected this accusation.
Since Thursday, a photo that is currently unauthenticated has been circulating in social media groups close to Yaya Dillo Djérou's family. It shows a close-up of the head of the remains of a man who looks exactly like Yaya Dillo, a small, very clear opening surrounded by a black halo, right in the middle of the temple.
“We didn’t attack anyone, he refused to surrender”
On Thursday, the Socialist Party Without Borders (PSF) and other opposition leaders spoke of an “assassination attempt” to keep him out of the May 6 presidential election. A PSF spokesman specifically accused the Presidential Guard, the army's elite unit responsible for the head of state's security, of leading the attack on the party headquarters in central N'Djamena. AFP journalists had seen trucks full of these “red berets” heading at high speed towards the PSF headquarters as heavy automatic weapons fire and muffled explosions echoed from the besieged building.
“We cannot use an entire military arsenal to attack an opponent who is sitting alone in an office” and “who had no weapon,” protested Robert Gamb, general secretary of the PSF. “We have not executed anyone,” Communications Minister Abderaman Koulamallah told AFP. “He refused to surrender, there was an exchange of fire, there was no execution” in this attack that left four soldiers dead and three remaining in the Yaya Dillo camp, the minister added, for which the enemy “himself shot the police ” had.
Dillo's party headquarters demolished with an excavator
On Friday, two days after the deadly attack, calm had returned to N'Djamena and most of the armored vehicles and soldiers deployed on Wednesday had disappeared. However, according to AFP journalists, a large excavator destroyed the PSF headquarters and was held at bay by a thick army security cordon, from which armored vehicles could be seen from a distance around the building.
According to the government, Yaya Dillo was wanted for plotting an alleged “assassination attempt” on the president of the Supreme Court 10 days ago and leading an attack on the headquarters of the all-powerful intelligence agencies on Tuesday.
According to political scientists, Yaya Dillo was one of Mahamat Déby's fiercest opponents and the one most feared by the Déby clan to which he belongs. In fact, he came from the Zaghawa family and ethnic group, which, although a very small minority in Chad, has monopolized the highest positions in the military and state apparatus for more than 33 years.