Around fifty Chadian opposition activists were arrested on Sunday October 8 in N’Djamena, according to the police, while they were preparing the return of their leader, in exile since the bloody repression a year ago of a demonstration against the maintenance of the junta in power. The president of the Les Transformateurs party, Succès Masra, for his part assured on X (formerly Twitter) that more than 200 of his supporters were arrested while they were renovating the movement’s headquarters and putting up posters.
The police “observed illegal gatherings of activists from the Les Transformateurs party […] aimed at disturbing public order” as the “anniversary of the insurrection of October 20, 2022” approached, assured the police in a press release, announcing “around fifty” arrests “for the need for an investigation”. More than 200 people were arrested, retorts Succès Masra on X, showing photos of young people putting up posters calling to welcome him at N’Djamena airport on October 18.
On September 10, he promised to return to Chad to “continue the fight alongside the people.” But on Thursday, an international arrest warrant from N’Djamena against Mr. Masra, dated June 8, was made public, calling for his arrest wherever he is abroad for “inciting an insurrectional uprising.” At issue: a video from May in which the prosecution accuses him of calling “to arms” Chadians in the south of the country, where he comes from.
On April 20, 2021, immediately after the announcement of the death of President Idriss Déby Itno, killed at the front by rebels after having ruled this Central African country with an iron fist for thirty years, a junta of fifteen generals had proclaimed his young son, General Mahamat Idriss Déby, president for a transition period initially planned for eighteen months before elections. But in October 2022, he extended it by two years, invoking the decision of a “national reconciliation dialogue” boycotted by the vast majority of the opposition and the most powerful armed rebel groups.
