Nov. 7 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Chadian authorities have announced that they accept the deployment of an international investigative mission to clarify what happened during the political violence unleashed on October 20, in which some 50 people died and more than 300 were injured.
“The truth is important. There were deaths. Each party gives its version. The population must know. They must know who sent whom to do what,” stressed the Congolese Minister for Regional Integration, Didier Mazenga Mukanzu, one of the two envoys. for Chad of the Economic Community of Central African States (CEEAC), quoted by the RFI station.
The ECCAS facilitation mission, active since October 25, has raised the possibility of an international investigation mission and the Chadian military authorities have accepted. “The collaboration of outsiders can help,” said a Chadian diplomatic source quoted by RFI.
The CEEAC mission has maintained intense activity in recent days and has met with representatives of the Government, the exiled opposition, diplomats and religious. “We must not dramatize. Chad must go to elections. And we have to support it,” Mukanzu said before highlighting the “desire to move forward” shown by all parties.
Mukanzu has explained that he hopes that a long-term meeting between all parties will be held in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Chad’s junta leader, Mahamat Idriss Déby, has described the protests as an “organized insurrection” supported by “foreign powers” and has accused the protesters of “cold-bloodedly killing civilians and assassinating members of the security forces” with a view to generating a “civil war”.
The protests erupted after the junta decided to extend Déby’s term for another two years, who had initially planned to step down to return power to a civilian government. He was appointed president by the Army in 2021 after the death of his father, Idriss Déby Itno, who had led the country since 1990.
