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Government denies force recruitment in Sarh

    ABIDJAN

    Chad’s government denied on Wednesday a report that its military was forcibly recruiting young people in Sarh, some 500 km southeast of the capital. “This is totally false,” Issa Ibrahim Kedela, the director of cabinet at the Ministry of Communication, told IRIN.

    The Missionary Service News Agency, MISNA, quoted unnamed civil society sources as saying that young people in the town were living in fear. MISNA said “a large group” of students from the Roman Catholic Charles Langwa Institute fled after seeing an army recruitment truck near their school.

    “The forced enrolment in Sarh is in all probability a prelude to a new government offensive against the rebels of the Movement for Democracy and Justice in Chad, headed by former minister Youssouf Togoimi,” MISNA said on Wednesday.

    Togoimi was a former defence minister in the government of President Idris Deby before forming the Mouvement pour la democratie et la justice au Tchad (MDJT) in late 1998. The MDJT operates mainly in the Tibesti Mountains, an arid area in northern Chad. According to Kedela, Togoimi has never said clearly why he is fighting the government.

    Kedela said the Tibesti was now quiet. Chadian President Idriss Deby met Togoimi in Libya in September, he added, and Ndjamena “is still open to peace overtures” from the rebels.

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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