World Peace News: Top Stories

Irish troops patrol Chad town after rebel attack
by Finbarr O'Reilly

Reuters Translate This Article
15 June 2008

GOZ-BEIDA, Chad (Reuters) - Irish EU troops patrolled the eastern Chadian town of Goz-Beida and surrounding refugee camps on Sunday after insurgents attacked the town in their latest offensive against Chad's President Idriss Deby.

Chad army troops in pickups mounted with heavy guns or laden with rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) raced round the town, which a rebel column of up to 100 vehicles attacked on Saturday before heading towards the Sudan border 70 km (40 miles) away.

Oil-producing Chad and Sudan accuse each other of backing insurgents who have attacked both capitals in recent months.

Irish troops protecting refugee camps surrounding Goz-Beida under the European Union's EUFOR mission in eastern Chad came under RPG fire near Djabal camp during Saturday's fighting.

They returned 'warning fire' at the unidentified attackers.

Metre-wide craters from the RPG blasts were visible outside the sprawling camp on Sunday as Irish troops briefly deployed to reassure its 15,000 refugees from Sudan's Darfur war. They also patrolled around Goz-Beida on foot and in armored cars.

Women in colorful flowing robes carried plastic jerrycans of water on their heads and men led donkeys laden with firewood.

Some residents and children waved cheerfully at the EUFOR troops, whose presence has made at least some improvement to the dire insecurity. But the usual Sunday market was cancelled and mobile phone links were down in Goz-Beida and nearby Abeche.

'The situation in town appears calm but we remain vigilant,' Commandant Stephen Morgan, spokesman for the Irish 97th Infantry Battalion, told a Reuters reporter in Goz-Beida.

'We sighted a number of unexploded ordnances which were marked and noted and once the situation permits we will go and destroy them.'

DEFENSIVE POSITIONS

Some of the town's mud-built walls were marked by RPG explosions. Medical workers said at least 24 people were wounded in the attack and the government said one woman was killed.

A thin trail of smoke rose from the smoldering remains of a compound belonging to German aid agency GTZ, whose fuel store caught fire in the fighting. Other aid compounds were looted.

Government troops drove their pickup trucks round the town at speed, kicking up plumes of dust, and they appeared to have reinforced defensive positions on the road northeast to Sudan.

'The army pursued the invaders and routed them,' Chadian Information Minister Mahamat Hissene told reporters in the capital N'Djamena, in western Chad, late on Saturday.

Hissene said the rebels were sowing confusion and poured cold water on reports the rebels were preparing another assault on N'Djamena, which they attacked in February after a rapid advance across the country. Hundreds of people were killed then.

'This war is not about positions, it is a war on the move. The important thing for the army is to block this invasion.'

The rebel National Alliance has said since its men clashed with government helicopter gunships on Thursday, forcing one to crash-land, that they had columns preparing to move west towards N'Djamena. There has been no independent confirmation.

Approaching seasonal rains will obstruct any overland military advance, filling the surrounding wadis and turning Goz-Beida into a virtual island for the rest of the wet season.

(Writing by Alistair Thomson)

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