Twelve people were killed yesterday, Thursday, in Chad, in an attack on an area near the border with Sudan, a source within the African country’s security apparatus told Agence France-Presse, as N'Djamena and Washington accuse the Sudanese army of recently launching attacks on the neighboring country’s territory.
An airstrike targeted “a market (…) where the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) were obtaining fuel” near Antikong, his source in the security forces told AFP on condition of anonymity, referring to the Sudanese paramilitaries who have been engaged in a war with the regular army since 2023.
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The strike resulted in “12 dead and seven wounded,” the source added.
Chadian media attributed the attack to the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).
In a statement, the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is aligned with the military, expressed surprise that “certain parties have blamed the Sudanese Armed Forces for attacks before any professional verification (…) of the circumstances of the incident.”
He also emphasized that Sudan respects Chad’s national sovereignty.
Last week, the Chadian armed forces reported an airstrike carried out using unmanned aerial vehicles, with no casualties, adding that they suspected it was carried out by the Sudanese armed forces.
Washington condemned on Thursday the “recent airstrikes carried out by the Sudanese armed forces” in Chad, in a statement issued by the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum.
For its part, Sudan accused neighboring countries—Ethiopia and Chad—of supporting the RSF, a charge their governments deny.
On Monday, the U.S. proposed extending the UN arms embargo to all of Sudan, including the vast Darfur region (in the west), to prevent the war from spreading and engulfing the entire region.
The war in Sudan between the RDF and the RSF, once allies, broke out on April 15, 2023, and has claimed the lives of at least 200,000 people, according to fairly conservative estimates by humanitarian organizations.
It has turned more than 12 million Sudanese into internally displaced persons and refugees, causing, according to the UN, the most severe humanitarian crisis on the planet.
