621 people, including 83 minors, have been arrested in Chad since the violently repressed opposition protests that left some 50 people dead on October 20, the public prosecutor in N’Djamena announced Friday.
This is the first time that the authorities have publicly admitted the figure of more than 600 arrests mentioned by several local and international NGOs after these demonstrations against the extension of two years in power of General Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno.
However, the government has so far only acknowledged “fifty” deaths by bullets and more than 300 injured on 20 October alone, including “ten killed” among the forces of order.
President Déby, who was extended in office for two years at the beginning of October by a national reconciliation forum boycotted by a large part of the opposition and major rebel groups, has always claimed that the 20 October demonstrators were planning an “insurrection” to overthrow the government