Skip to main content

Clashes over water access kill at least 42 people in Chad

N’DJAMENA, Chad (AP) — Clashes between two families over access to water have killed at least 42 people in eastern Chad, the government says, as resources are stretched in a region where hundreds of thousands of refugees from neighboring Sudan have poured in.

Chad’s deputy prime minister, Limane Mahamat, said another 10 people were wounded in Saturday’s clashes in Igote village in Wadi Fira province near the border.

The situation is under control after the army intervened, Mahamat said Sunday, adding that a mediation process in the village had begun, as well as judicial proceedings to determine criminal responsibility.

Such clashes over resources are common in the Central African country. Last year, clashes between farmers and herders in southwestern Chad left 42 people dead and homes burned.

Mahamat said the government will take “all necessary measures” to prevent a destabilization of the border area.

In February, Chad closed the border with Sudan until further notice, calling it an attempt to limit the spread of that country’s war into its territory after multiple crossings by fighters with warring Sudanese factions.

Iran attacks Bahrain and Kuwait following US strikes, threatens to end talks to end the war

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard launched drone and missile attacks Sunday targeting Bahrain and Kuwait in response to U.S. airstrikes that hit the Islamic Republic, and threatened a “complete halt” could come to negotiations to end the war if Washington continues its attacks. Efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf that once carried a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas, without Iran's direct oversight sparked the crossfire now gripping the region. A multinational maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Saturday that it would expand a route near Oman in the Strait of Hormuz to allow for both inbound and outbound traffic — setting up a new flashpoint with Tehran. Iran insists it alone must govern the strait after the war, upending decades of the world considering that the strait was international waters free for all, despite its sitting in Iran and Oman's territorial waters. Tehran has twice attacked vessels going through the Oman route, backed by a United Nations agency, in recent days. Early Sunday, the U.S. military’s Central Command said it struck Iranian military “surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities and minelayer capabilities” following an attack on a ship at sea early Saturday morning. That ship, the Panamanian-flagged tanker Kiku, carried crude oil for the state-run energy company of Qatar, a key negotiator between Iran and the United States.
Read Next Story