Yearbook 2016

Chad. According to countryaah, the current population of Chad is 16,425,875. The riots of Boko Haram’s ravages around Lake Chad led to a wave of refugees in the region and the UN estimated during the year that over 6 million people were in urgent need of food assistance in Chad and its neighboring countries. Fisheries, agriculture and livestock management were disturbed, border trade was made more difficult and the Chad government extended the state of emergency that existed in the country.

Chad Population 2016

According to Amnesty, Chad housed approximately 450,000 refugees, many of them children who could not attend school. UN Refugee Agency UNHCR stressed that if the world’s richest countries received refugees in proportion to their size, poor countries such as Chad would not have to bear such heavy burden.

In February, President Idriss Déby appointed a new Prime Minister, Albert Pahimi Padacké, former Minister of Justice and seen as close ally to Déby. Before the upcoming presidential election, Déby announced that he would run for a fifth term.

The message triggered widespread protests from the opposition in several cities. The demonstrations then grew a daughter of an opposition politician kidnapped and subjected to group rape, filmed and posted on the Internet. Some of the perpetrators were reported to be sons of generals and one of their aides to a minister.

Angry student protests erupted on the streets of the capital N’Djamenas. Police responded with tear gas, and the government banned the demonstrations. However, they continued, military was deployed and two casualties were required and several students were wounded as soldiers opened fire. Seven men were later sentenced to ten years in prison each for kidnapping and rape.

Ahead of the April presidential election, Amnesty called for the release of four political activists who were arrested and prosecuted for calling for the protests. When the trial began, there was a riot between protesters and police, with some injured as a result. The UST trade union organization also protested the charge against the four. In protest, the UST left its seats in the Electoral Commission and in other agencies for cooperation with the regime.

  • Abbreviation Finder: Check to see how the 3-letter abbreviation of TCD stands for the nation of Chad in geography.

Idriss Déby won the election with 61.5% of the vote, according to the official election commission. Saleh Kebzabo was said to have received just under 13%, but Kebzabo’s party UNDR (National Union for Development and Renewal) and several opposition parties claimed election fraud from the ruling party MPS (Patriotic Rescue Movement) and refused to approve the result.

In May, five Chadian UN soldiers were killed when they were exposed to blast attacks and gunfire in northern Mali.

According to thereligionfaqs, Chad’s former dictator Hissène Habré was sentenced in May to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity, torture and war crimes during his time in power 1982–90. The trial was held in Senegal, where Habré was arrested in 2013 on behalf of the African Union. Habré was accused of committing murder and torture on thousands of regime critics. It is estimated that more than 40,000 people were killed and over 200,000 were tortured under his rule. The defense claimed that there was no evidence that Habré knew of the abuse.

In June, Chad began sending around 2,000 soldiers to Niger to join the fight against the Boko Haram terror group.

President Déby was sworn in for his fifth term in August. The opposition responded with a big strike in protest, and Presidential Second Saleh Kebzabo accused the government of stealing the election and sat down over the law by silencing political opponents. Tear gas was used by security forces to disperse protesters gathered despite the ban. At least one man was killed.

Déby reformed the government and replaced ministers responsible for defense, finance and the oil industry. The economy was under severe pressure as low oil prices reduced export earnings. The unrest in the region also disturbed the economy. Strikes occurred during the year, including demands for payment of delayed wages. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated that GDP would decline by about 1 percent during the year.

When the World Economic Forum ranked how the world’s countries managed to exploit the opportunities of digitalization and the Internet, Chad ended up last of the 139 listed countries.

HISTORY

Occupied by France between 1897 and 1914 and annexed to French Equatorial Africa, Chad obtained autonomy in 1958 and independence in 1960. The profound heterogeneity of the country, divided between the northern regions of Arab-Islamic culture and the southern ones inhabited by black, Christian and animist populations were accentuated by the economic, social and cultural transformations induced in the south by French colonialism, with the formation of a local elite linked to the metropolis. It was the latter that managed the process of transition to independence, through the Parti Progressiste Tchadien (PPT), whose leader F. Tombalbaye he became president and prime minister of the new state. After the replacement of the first Gaullist constitution, of 1960, with a new one of authoritarian character, in 1962, and the suppression of all political parties other than the PPT (1962), the growing discontent of the populations of the north gave rise to numerous outbreaks of rebellion, merged in 1966 into the formation of a guerrilla movement, the Front de libération nationale du Tchad (FROLINAT), supported by Sudan and subsequently by Libya. In 1968 the spread of the revolt forced Tombalbaye to ask for the intervention of France which, with a bloody repression, temporarily blocked the insurrection phenomenon. In June 1973 Libya occupied a large strip of territory along the northern border of the Chad (the so-called Aozou belt). armed forces F. Malloum. In the following three years, the advance of the rebel forces was accompanied by the fractionation of FROLINAT itself and the formation of opposing groups, such as the Forces Armées du Nord (FAN) by H. Habré and the Forces Armées Populaires (FAP) by G. Oueddei. In 1978 Malloum, who controlled only the southern part of the Chad, tried to reach an agreement with Habré, conferring him the position of prime minister in a cabinet of national reconciliation; this failed, however, after a few months, causing the extension of the clashes to the same capital, and, in 1979, Malloum, defeated by the FAN, was forced to leave the country. A subsequent agreement between the eleven factions now existing in Chad proved itself precarious and, in 1980, Oueddei resorted to the intervention of Libya to defeat Habré’s forces and assert his control over Chad. In 1982, when Tripoli’s forces withdrew, Habré resumed the offensive and recaptured the capital. Established in October a new provisional government of national unity, within which he assumed the presidency of the Republic, Habré continued the fight against Oueddei with the support of the United States and France. In 1989 an agreement, signed in Algiers, put an end to the conflict with Libya, establishing the withdrawal of Libyan troops and Chad from the Aozou belt, which was entrusted to the arbitration of the International Court in The Hague. In December 1989 a popular referendum approved a new Constitution and reconfirmed Habré as president for 7 years. In 1990, however, a military invasion led by Colonel I. Déby, leader of the Libyan-backed Mouvement Patriotique du Salut (MPS), forced Habré to flee. Déby suspended the Constitution and Parliament and in March 1991, after the launch of a provisional national charter, assumed the functions of head of state. Elected president in 1996 and reconfirmed continuously from 2001 to 2021, Déby remained in power after having approved a constitutional amendment through a referendum that eliminated the two-term limit;killed in unclear circumstances a few days after re-election, in April 2021 his son Mahamat Déby Itno took over. Meanwhile, after the substantial failure of successive ceasefire agreements, the militias of the United Front for Change, which brought together rebel groups based in the eastern region, have come to repeatedly threaten the capital. Strong tensions remain with Sudan, accused of supporting the rebels.