Four reported killed in cross-border attacks

Four people were killed in two separate incidents after armed men led by a Chadian rebel launched cross-border attacks from Central African Republic (CAR) into southern Chad, news organisations reported on Thursday.

Chad's interior minister, Abderahmane Moussa, said on Radio France Internationale (RFI) that the attack was led by Abdoulaye Miskine, formerly an aide to Laokien Barde, the assassinated leader of the Armed Forces for a Federal Republic (FARF). The FARF, a rebel group based in southern Chad, signed a peace agreement with the Chadian government in 1997, and the two sides renewed the accord a year later.

Miskine's group reportedly attacked a nomads' camp near the Grande Sido border post on 29 December, killing two herders and kidnapping several others. Two days later the group ambushed a vehicle in the same area, killing two passengers and taking four others prisoner, RFI said. The kidnapped Chadians are reportedly in jail in the town of Kabo in northern CAR and have been tortured, RFI and AFP reported.

Moussa, reacting to reports from eyewitnesses that troops from CAR took part in the attacks, said he was sure that Miskine, who has been living in CAR for a few years, did not act alone. "We do not think that he could have acted on his own. Therefore we are urging the CAR authorities to put an end to these provocative acts," RFI reported him as saying.

These are the first border incidents since the governments of Chad and CAR agreed at the end of December to ease tension between their countries following the flight of former CAR army chief General Francois Bozize to southern Chad. Bozize, accused of participating in a bid to topple the CAR government, recently had all charges against him dropped.