Tens of thousands flee bitter Chad battles

Press, 29 March 1980, Page 8

Tens of thousands flee bitter Chad battles

NZPA-Reuter

Paris

Tens of thousands of terrified inhabitants have fled the war-torn Chad capital of N’Djamena, where opposing Muslim armies intensified their battle for supremacy yesterday, according to reports reaching Paris.

French officials said between 20,000 and 30,000 civilian refugees had crossed the border into northern Cameroon. Fresh troops were reaching N’Djamena from the eastern strongholds of the Defence Minister (Mr Hissene Habne) while forces from the barren northern plateau brought relief to President Goukoum Queddei’s “people’s armed forces.” Hostilities were resumed at first light, following the pattern ever since the battle erupted six days ago in the capital of the former French African colony.

For the second day running the two sides met in the battered Roman Catholic cathedral in a no-man’s land area between the two armies to seek a cease-fire with the help of French officers and

the ambassadors of Saudi Arabia, France and Egypt. The attempt failed. The city was under random bombardment by a force commanded by the southern leader, vice-president Abdelkader Kamougue, pinned down on the bank of the Chari River opposite the city by Mr Habre’s forces.

French officials said the intermittent mortar and artillery attacks had certainly caused heavy civilian casualties, but it was impossible to estimate the numbers of dead and wounded.

The 1000-strong French force grouped at a military base near N’Djamena Airport is under strict orders not to become involved in the fighting.

Many of the first 156 European refugees to reach Paris

complained that they had had to make their way to the military base alone .without the protection of French troops in Chad at its leaders’ request. Almost all the 900 Europeans in N’Djamena, mostly French technical assistants and their families, have been evacuated by French military aircraft by makeshift pontoon ferry across the Chari River to Cameroun. Officials said about 50 Europeans still remained in the devastated city, which is without. water and electricity. They were either trapped between the. opposing forces or were staying put of their own will. The officials said a contingent of 500 Congolese troops, in N’Djamena as an African peace keeping force, were in

a barracks in a particularly exposed sector. Although the Congolese have no part in the fighting, they have already lost one man killed, according to these sources.

French experts described 'the renewed civil war as the {product of ancient endemic i rivalries. They said Colonel Kamougue’s army from the mainly Christian and animist south appeared to be trying to profit from the conflict to extend his faction’s power. The Kamougue force controls the entire southern region, and is based on Moundou, near the Cameroun border. It is made up of remnants of the national army which was defeated a year ago when southern president {Felix Malloum was overithrown by Muslim forces.