WADAI SLAVE-DEALERS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 306, 19 September 1908, Page 5

WADAI SLAVE-DEALERS.

& DEFEATED BY FRENCH. (BY IELEGEAM—I'KESS ASSOCIATION —COPYRIGHT.) Cairo, September 17. The French crushingly defeated a tribe of slave-dealers at Jua, Upper Wadai. The enemy lost 1000 men. The district has been the surviving refuge of caravans proceeding to Central Africa for the purposes of slave trading and gun running. EXPEDITION FROM LAKE CHAD. The State of Wadia, along with those of Bagirmi and Kanem, was recognised as French by the Anglo-French Convention of March 21, 1889. Wadai, which is the strongest native. State of tho Central Sudan, borders on Lake Chad, where the French troops are established. Tho population' of Wadai profess adherence to the Mahdi-es-Senuesi, who is the controlling power of the caravan route from Wadai to Benghazi, the North African seaport. A Paris message of' May. 10 states:—"lt has been decided to nndbrtafco operations against the Sultan of the Senussi, in Central Africa, who has repeatedly violated 1 the agreement entered into with Franco in 1903. It is also reported that a French lieutenant,- who represents tlio French Government in the country, is being practically kept a prisoner by the Sultan. Lieutenant-Colonel larjeau, who commands the French forces in the Lake Chad region, will march on N'Dele, tho residence of the Sultan, with 20 tirailleurs from Melfi."