Boko Haram terrorists killed 40 soldiers on the island of Barkaram in Lake Chad, where the nation of Chad has a military base. In March, Boko Haram killed seven other soldiers near Lake Chad.
Boko Haram launched an insurgency in 2009, seeking to eradicate Western forms of education. It sought to establish Islamic law in Nigeria’s northeast. Boko Haram’s insurgency has spread to Nigeria’s neighbors, including parts of Chad, Cameroon, and Niger.
Chad, a country that is mostly desert and has around 18 million people, contains many lawless areas, and turmoil increased before and after the fraudulent presidential election that reelected Chad’s dictator, Mahamat Deby, on May 6, 2024.
In response to the fraudulent election, the main opposition party has announced that it will boycott the legislative and local elections set for December 29. This announcement was made on October 20, the second anniversary of the killing of more than 300 protesters opposing the military junta run by Déby. The May 6 election was deemed “neither credible, nor free, nor democratic” by the International Federation for Human Rights.
Earlier this month, heavy rain hit all 23 of Chad’s provinces, causing devastating floods. Over a thousand people died, and many thousands witnessed their homes washed away by the floods. More than a million acres of farmland were destroyed, increasing hunger in a nation where chronic malnutrition already afflicts more than 3.4 million people. Transportation is paralyzed, with roads and bridges destroyed or submerged, making disaster relief efforts difficult.
Floods cut off Chad’s internet access in mid-October, and it has yet to be restored. Now, it is planning to spend $31 million to build a new cable to connect it to the internet. Chad, sometimes referred to as the “Dead Heart of Africa,” is a poor, backward country that has been in a state of civil war for much of its existence. Even before the recent floods, there were regular internet disruptions that made life difficult for businesses that rely on the internet. Earlier this year, Chad’s government killed an opposition leader, and then bulldozed his party’s headquarters.