Chad President asks for Libyan help

Press, 7 April 1980, Page 6

Chad President asks for Libyan help

r NZPA-Reuter Londoni - Chad’s beleaguered Presi-| i dent - Goukouni Oueddei has: for Libyan' help ini his battle with his-.Defence I Minister (Mr Hissen Habre) i for the Chad capital, N’Djamena, the Libyan news hagency, Jana, has said. : ' •. The agency quoted a perI sonal envoy of the Chad : President as saying in the I Libyan - capital,--Tripoli, .that the call fort help stemmed : from a “sincere belief that > the Libyans would not stand idly by while their brethren in Chad were -threatened with death.” - . ’ The President’s forces have been battling those of Mr Habre for ■ control of N’Djamena for two weeks. At least 800 people have been killed and u 0 - to 100,000 have fled the capital for Cameroun. The unnamed envoy -, • in ; Tripoli told a news confer- i

ience that N’Djamena was in [the thrdes of a savage civil 'war. orchestrated by Mr Habre,'who, he alleged, was getting arms from Egypt, JdnA’reported. - The war is [significant outside Chad, because of strategic: location in the centre of Africa, and, its virtually untapped mineral resources. There is sOme hope that the country may,--dike its- neighbours , Nigeria, Algeria, and Libya, have oil. Libya already occupies the north of the country. In N’Djamena at the week-end vultures swooped down to feast on the dead, and starving dogs scavenged through .deserted ' streets, where the civil war seemed to have settled into stalemate, A. tour of the city showed that'neither side had made any big. advance in the street battles.