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Prime Minister Delwa Kassire Coumakoye Thursday announced that the 6:30 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. curfew will take effect immediately.
French radio quotes a Chadian rebel leader as denying President Idriss Deby's claim that the government is in total control of the country. Mahamat Nouri from the rebel Union of Forces for Democracy and Development says the government controls the capital, N'djamena, but has no control anywhere else.
Rebels and government forces clashed in the capital last week after a cross-country rebel drive from the east.
In his own comments to French radio Thursday, President Deby called on European peacekeepers to deploy to Chad as soon as possible to protect refugees from Sudan's Darfur region. Mr. Deby said Chad's army has been trying to secure the refugee camps, and that has made it harder for the troops to fight the rebels.
A European force of 3,700 troops was scheduled to deploy last week. The force is designed to protect refugees and aid workers from fighting in eastern Chad and the spillover in violence from Darfur.
In another development, French President Nicolas Sarkozy says Paris will "do its duty" in response to what he called "rebel aggression in Chad." France has about 1,500 troops in its former colony.
The rebels are warning that if the French use military force, rebel fighters could attack French as well as Chadian soldiers.
International aid groups in Chad say more than 100 civilians have been killed in the fighting and another 1,000 have been injured.
The United Nations' refugee agency says more than 3,000 people have fled Chad for northern Nigeria. The U.N. says it also has registered 20,000 Chadian refugees in Cameroon. Some aid agencies estimate that up to 500,000 people, or half the population of N'Djamena, have fled the capital.
Source: By VOA News
Posted February 7th, 2008 by seher
