President Déby’s sudden death has left a huge vacuum. The stability of the country and beyond of the entire Sahel region, is at stake.

President Idriss Déby Itno’s death, announced on the 20 April by the army spokesman General Azem Bermandoa Agouna has meant a terrible loss for Chad. Accordingly, the       68 years-old President who was in office since 1990 died in the North of the country in a combat with rebels who had launched an offensive on the 11 April, on the day of the presidential election which was won by Déby by 79%.
But the circumstances of his attempt to obtain a sixth mandate
were controversial.
Observers say that such mandate was a violation of the constitution which limits the number of presidential mandates to only two. Then, according to the US-based NGO Human Rights Watch, the pre-election period was marred by a ruthless crackdown on opponents. On the 22 April, in a communiqué, the Paris-based “Collectif de solidarité avec les luttes sociales et politiques en Afrique”, a coalition of African opposition groups, the French Greens and the leftist Parti de Gauche, stressed that the election was boycotted and did not have more value than previous ones since all were marred with massive fraud. Besides, in 2008, the opposition leader Ibni Oumar Mahamat Saleh, was assassinated.
Furthermore, Déby’s uncompromising attitude during his 31 years rule provided arguments to rebels who consider that no political change is possible through the ballot, since elections were systematically rigged.

Déby’s death occurred after the rebels of Mahamat Mahadi Ali’s Front for change and concord in Chad (FACT) launched their offensive from the Tibesti mountains. The area is the home of the Gorane tribe of the former President Hissene Habre, who serves a life imprisonment sentence in Senegal for crimes against humanity, who was ousted from power in 1990, by his adviser on defence matters at the time, Idriss Déby.  A former political exile in Paris, Mahamat Mahdi Ali, has been involved in rebel activity since 2016. He first operated from Sudan then settled in Libya where he first fought simultaneously against the Islamic State and Gen. Khalifa Haftar’s National Liberation Army before he decided to strike an alliance with the latter in 2017.
From then on, he established a sanctuary near the Chadian border in the Southern Al Djoufrah district.
On the 19 April, the Chadian government first claimed it had stopped the rebel offensive in the provinces of Tibesti and Kanem. Allegedly, 300 rebels died in the combats. But on the 20 April, the FACT denied such toll and added that he wanted to create the conditions of political change and organise a round table of all Chadian political forces. The rebel group also claimed on its facebook page that its forces had begun “the liberation of Kanem region.”
Until now, it has not been possible to independently corroborate the Chadian army’s version given the remote location where the fighting took place. In addition, the Chadian army failed to provide details about the circumstances of Déby’s death such as where, when and how it did occur. The official version was challenged on the social media which claimed that he was assassinated in the context of an internal conflict inside his Zagawa tribe. Yet, these sources do not either provide verifiable details. There is no doubt though that the last election confirmed the divisions inside Déby’s family.

One of his nephews, 47 years-old Yaya Dillo Djérou, stood as presidential candidate against him. Between 2005 and 2008, Dillo participated to an insurrection of Zagawa military against Idriss Deby, before becoming minister of Mines and Energy. In May 2020, he even accused publicly, the President’s wife, Hinda Deby of conflict of interest alleging that her foundation absorbed unduly, funds to fight the Covid pandemics. On the 27 February 2021, the presidential guard besieged his home and 5 people died in the shootings with Dillo’s guard including his mother and his son.
Whatever its circumstances, the President’s death has been followed by a constitutional coup that might increase the fragility of the regime which obviously fears the citizens’ reaction as showed the deployment of armoured vehicles in the streets of Ndjamena on the 19 April. On the following day, an army spokesman announced that free and democratic elections would be organised after a 18 months transition during which the country will be ruled by a military council chaired by Deby’s son, four stars general and commander of the presidential guard, Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, who appointed immediately 14 generals to form a transitional military council (CMT) and dissolved the government and the parliament.

Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno has been named interim president of Chad by military officers.

Such decision caused an outcry among both African and French civil society organisations. They said that the military violated the constitution which stipulates that in the event of a vacuum of power at the presidency, the national assembly speaker becomes the interim president and elections have to be organised between 45 and 90 days later. In order to defuse such critics, on the 26 April, the transition military council appointed a civilian as Primer Minister, a former MP from Southern Chad, Albert Pahimi Padacké and on the 4 May appointed a transition government including two members of the opposition leader Saleh Kebzabo’s Union nationale pour la démocratie et le renouveau party. Yet, the most strategic portfolios went to the military. The questions is whether Mahamat Deby will manage to impose his authority to the army generals and to the Northern tribes and whether he can replace his father as the main leader of the G5 Sahel coalition.
On the domestic front, the situation of the new government is extremely fragile. Despite the participation of an opposition ministers in it, the grassroots disapprove. Several demonstrations took place on the 27 April in Ndjamena and cities of the South, urging the military junta to resign and hand over power to civilians. At least, nine people died in the incidents and 600 were arrested. On the 8 May, the Chadian police used tear gas to disperse demonstrators in Ndjamena and open fired on them, injuring one person, reported France-Presse news agency.

According to AFP, a small group of demonstrators burnt French flags to protest against France’s support to the regime, expressed by President Emmanuel Macron who was the only Western leader to attend the funeral. Chad is indeed France’s most precious ally in its war against jihadism in Sahel. It hosts the headquarters of the French Barkhane operation in Ndjamena. Not only did France abstain from condemning the constitutional coup but became also involved in the conflict between the rebels and the Ndjamena authorities, complain the FACT. In a communiqué from the 3 May, the rebel group accused the French Airforce to collaborate with the Chadian army.So far, the new President, Mahamat Déby has taken a hardline against the rebels. On the 24 April, the rebel leader Mahamat Mahadi Ali offered to hold a ceasefire but it could not be implemented because rebel positions were bombed by the Chadian army. Then, on the 25 April, the military junta declared that it would not negotiate with the rebels.
Mahamat Déby also ignored advises for a dialogue and negotiations with the rebels from former President, Goukuni Weddeye whose approach was shared by the African Union which appointed the presidents of Niger Mohamed Bazoum and Mauritania Mohamed Ould Ghazaouani as mediators.Those who urge the government to compromise are aware of some key facts.  The FACT is indeed posing a serious military threat.
Its 700 to 1,500 fighters, according estimates, have fought with the troops of Marshall Haftar in Libya, which are supported by Egypt, the UAE and French special forces and boast from a better equipment than average Chadian rebel movements, including armoured vehicles and artillery. This group has three bases in Southern Libya and was established in 2019 on the Brak Al Shati base where the Russian Wagner mercenaries gave them weapons.

The French political scientist Roland Marchal warns about the danger of a potential connection of the crisis in Libya and in North-Eastern Nigeria, the sanctuary of the Boko Haram jihadists. Besides, the other borders are unsafe: the Central African Republic is a collapsed state and in Sudan, Darfur has been a sanctuary in the past for Zagawa rebels. Inside the country, on the shores of Lake Chad, Boko Haram boasts from the support of the Boudouma tribe. In Chad, the Déby regime is unpopular because the dividends of the oil bonanza have not been shared evenly. Déby used most of its 4.5 bn dollars of bonuses from Chevron to buy weapons, expand the military apparatus and pay for mercenaries including helicopter pilots and retired French colonels. Most oil contracts were allocated to feed the patronage network of Idriss Déby Itno and his wife Hinda Abderahim Açyl.
The consequences of Idriss Déby’s death are likely to be felt far beyond the country’s borders. Indeed, the Chadian military also has played a major role in the struggle against the jihadist threat in Sahel, contributing troops to the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali. Chadian troops also have fought against Boko Haram in the volatile Lake Chad area. Some 1,200 soldiers have been deployed in February in the ‘three borders area’ between Chad, Libya and Niger.
If the situation became more critical in Chad itself, Chad’s G5 Sahel allies (Niger, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Mali) and France, fear that part of its forces would be diverted from operations against the jihadists. There is no doubt that this situation will make it more difficult for the French government to reduce its military presence in Sahel as wish several opposition parties in France. Instead, France risks to be involved in another conflict through its support to the Chadian army since French military intelligence DGSE and COS special forces commandos are present around the Chadian president.

François Misser

In the north of the country, at Tamale, there are places where people who are victims of violence and superstition live. They are mostly women, usually elderly and widowed. Rather than rights or dignity, what counts for them is their ancient beliefs.

The witch camps are far from the cities and communities, places to where women accused of witchcraft are banished.They have been stricken by the violence of ignorance, superstition and even physical violence. Their accusers can be anybody: a brother with a sick child who does not take it to hospital but seeks traditional help against the sickness, a ‘rival’ in love, a neighbour who does not understand why they are unfortunate in their business. The hunt for the witch follows.

Almost a thousand women are still ‘detained’ in these witch camps.

Ancient traditions and beliefs are more important than individual rights and dignity. Almost a thousand women are still ‘detained’ in these witch camps. There are no barriers or fences but all these women know they cannot return to their communities. Stigma, fear and danger act as walls and chains. Only two of these camps have ever been closed over the years. Today, six of them remain.
Over the years, associations and NGOs have worked for the rehabilitation of those women, a very difficult and laborious task.  The programme of rehabilitation involves long discussions with the village headmen who banished the women and also with their families. It is a real work of dialogue intended to see if the necessary conditions of safety and acceptance exist for their return home.
“ The problem is the persistent belief that there exists the ability to use evil supernatural power to harm others. This power is attributed to women” says Simon Ngona of the Witch Hunt Victims Empowerment Project.  He admits it is difficult to uproot beliefs and taboos: “It is not important whether I believe in the power of these women or not. Most people do so. To say ‘it is not true’ is to go against society”. One of the first statements of the new minister for questions of gender, children and social protection Sarah Adwoa Safo was: “I shall work to restructure the witch camps so that the women residents feel at home there”.

Kasua : “I came here to Kukuo Camp 27 years ago.

The associations ask if it is a question of places for protection or prisons. The question is: how can a facelift for these places help to solve a question regarding abuses and the violation of human rights? “Besides violence, these women have also suffered great humiliation”, says Lamnatu Adam, head of the Songtaba ONG. “It is really a violation of human rights – she continues – since they are left with nothing and abandoned. In those camps, they are unable to forget what they have suffered and they often fall into deep depression”.
None of the women we met in the four camps (Gambaga, Gnani, Gushegu, Kukuo) we visited know how old they are but all of them remember, or say they remember, exactly how long they have been there. Kasua is one of these. “I came here to Kukuo Camp 27 years ago.  I have grown old here. They said I killed my brother’s son. That was not true but how could I defend myself? My husband was already dead”.

Collateral victims
The women accused of being witches are rejected, always waiting for a son or daughter or benefactor to visit them – bringing some food or a bar of soap – subject to the decisions of the nearby village headman where the camp is located.  Regarding children, a tragedy within a tragedy is the presence of boys and girls who are left in the company of the witch who, due to her age, is often unable to look after herself. The children grow up isolated from society and often do not go to school. They are the collateral victims of the stigma that afflicts their mothers or grandmothers. One of these is Waramatu, aged 17, who came here with his mother  years ago and has since been to school for just three days.

Salamatu: “ They said I was a witch and now I am here”

Then there is eleven-year-old Fusheina who has been in Kukuo Camp with her grandmother for seven years. There are many more similar cases. “I have been here a long time and I have become used to this place”, recounts Abena, who has been in Gnani Camp for 15 years. “I would like to return home but I don’t want to be beaten or killed. Some women went home to their villages but then came back here. When I am very old and about to die, I will send for my children to come and fetch me, but if they leave me here, that is alright. After all, I am together with other women and we share the same fate”.
Some women try to protest and some have paid the large sum necessary for the ritual to establish their innocence. However, all of them must submit to the judgment of the crowd. After all, they themselves believe in magic and in its power. “There are people who can use your face who take on your identity to commit crimes and then you are unjustly accused”, is the explanation given by Wanduayab who has lived for many years in Gushegu Camp. “There was a woman in my community who fell ill and they accused me. What could I do?”.

Fusheina with her grandmother.

Life is hard in the camps where everyone has to look out for themselves day after day. Not all the women have joined LEAP, a government programme to combat poverty. “I dig other people’s fields and they give me something to eat. When there is a market in the village, I go in the evening to collect the maize and millet that has been left on the ground. I am not sure about wanting to return to my community. It happened once and it may happen again”, says Salamatu who has lived in Gushegu camp for seven years. “My rival – Tanjong, a resident in Gambaga Camp tells us – dreamt that I wanted to use witchcraft against her. The next day, they destroyed my roof. Then they began to beat me. Nobody tried to help me. They said I was a witch and now I am here”.
Many of the women have grown old in these camps. They have seen how the world goes on and changes only through the accounts of other ‘witches’ who came to the camps after them.

Antonella Sinopoli

The nature parks of W-Arly-Pendjari, straddling the borders of Niger, Burkina Faso and Benin, have become a target for terrorists and poachers. They have rendered inaccessible one of the most beautiful reserves of Africa.

With 1.7 million hectares of unspoiled nature shared by three national parks on the border between Niger, Burkina Faso and Benin, the W-Arly-Pendjari (WAP) complex is a crossroads of the largest ecosystem in all of western Africa. A treasure-trove of biodiversity recognised by the UNESCO in 1996 as a World Heritage Site, it is no longer coveted only by poachers and traffickers of animal hides and ivory but also by armed rebels and Jihadist cells.

This is confirmed by what has happened in recent years. On 9 August last, a group of guerrillas attacked the giraffe reserves at Koure in Niger, within the W park, killing six French humanitarian workers of the ACTED NGO, their driver and their guide. In May 2019, in Pendjari, Benin, two French tourists were abducted and their guide murdered. Since 2018, in the Arly Park in Burkina Faso, at least eight rangers and guides were killed in ambushes.
The widespread chaos has forced hundreds of park guards to leave checkpoints unmanned, transforming these areas into open zones where the hunting and sale of wild animals have never been easier.

Countermeasures
To regain control of the situation in the more vulnerable zones in the Wap African Parks Network complex, the ONG charged with management has engaged a group of instructors to create an internal intelligence unit to be employed on the Benin side of the parks of Pendjari and W. This unit is to train the rangers, teaching them counter-attack measures, to recruit new rangers and coordinate joint operations with soldiers deployed by the Benin army on the border with Burkina Faso and Niger. The government of Porto-Novo which in the past five years gave the NGO six million dollars, has deployed around 150 soldiers to guard three border crossings into Burkina Faso.

Pendjari National Park. Bénin. ( CC BY-SA 4.0/ Ji-Elle)

France has also given its support, providing the air forces of Benin and Burkina with spotter aircraft to intercept incursions by Islamist combatants. The increasingly bothersome presence of armed groups within these natural parks has been confirmed by Daniel Eizenga, a researcher of the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies. “In Arly Park, in recent months, there has been an increase in the number of operations bases of Islamist militants”, Eizenga explains.  “Various groups have come together which are now fighting for the control of this territory. In the W Park, instead, due to this threat, tourist trips and hunting expeditions have been discouraged since 2018”.
It is easy to understand why these areas are so desirable. They are impenetrable with dense undergrowth, difficult to reach and so difficult to police, where Islamic groups may settle undisturbed to set up training camps and find secure places to conceal arms and ammunition. “ The Islamic State in the great Sahara has increased pressure in the area coming into conflict with formations allied with Jama’at Nusrat al Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM)”, Eizenga emphasises. “On behalf of the latter, in the eastern part of Burkina Faso and in the south of the country close to the national park of Kaboré Tambi near the forest of Nazinga, the Macina Liberation Front, Ansaroul Islam ad al-Murabitun is operating”.

An alliance of convenience
That which allows the Jihadist groups to multiply here and there within the W-Arly-Pendjari (Wap) complex is, especially, the alliance of convenience formed with the poachers’ networks. This is a new strategy also used in the past by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel group of northern Uganda led by the warlord Joseph Kony, which formed an alliance with the elephant poachers of East Africa. This modus operandi has also been followed by the Sudanese Janjaweed militias.
What is happening on the border between Burkina Faso, Benin and Niger differs little from this.

The poachers pay a tax to the Jihadist militias and in return are given protection and a free hand to hunt and sell their goods. The guerrillas, in turn, benefit from this lucrative business to finance their activities. It is worth noting that a lion skin can be sold for 2,100 dollars and that in the Burkina part alone of the WAP complex, there are around 350 unguarded big cats”. “The most valuable goods are the bones and other parts of the lion, elephant tusks and the skins of leopards and cheetahs, recounts Philipp Henschel, director of the programme for the protection of lions in West and Central of the Panthera network.
“Wherever there are very valuable species of wild animals, such as lions, rhinoceroses and elephants, it is often the terrorists themselves who hunt them and sell their parts”.
Along with these shady transactions, the Jihadists and poachers hold in their grasp one of the more unspoiled reserves in the whole of Africa where once people would come from all over the world. Today it is no longer possible to go there – unless one is armed to the teeth.

Rocco Bellantone