Around 40 killed in Chad in jihadist attack on army

An aerial view shows Ngouboua after it was attacked by Boko Haram militants, Feb. 13, 2015. An attack by the group on Oct. 27, 2024, targeted a garrison in the area housing more than 200 Chadian soldiers. [Reuters]

An attack by jihadist group Boko Haram on the Chadian army killed around 40 people overnight near the Nigerian border, the government and local sources said Monday.

"A garrison housing more than 200 soldiers was targeted by members of Boko Haram" late on Sunday, a local source told AFP.

The presidency said in a statement that the attack struck near Ngouboua in the west of the country, "tragically leaving about 40 people dead."

Chadian President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno visited the scene early on Monday and launched an operation "to go after the attackers and track them down in their furthest hideouts", the statement added.

The attack struck at 10:00 pm local time (2100 GMT), local sources told AFP.

"Boko Haram members took control of the garrison, seized the weapons, burnt vehicles equipped with heavy arms, and left," said one local source, who asked not to be named.

A vast expanse of water and swamps, Lake Chad's countless islets serve as hideouts for jihadist groups, such as Boko Haram and its offshoot Islamic State in West Africa (ISWAP), who make regular attacks on the countries' army and civilians.

Boko Haram launched an insurgency in Nigeria in 2009, leaving more than 40,000 people dead and displacing two million, and the organization has since spread to neighboring countries.

In March 2020, the Chadian army suffered its biggest ever one-day losses in the region, when around 100 troops died in a raid on the lake's Bohoma peninsula.

The attack prompted then-president Idriss Deby Itno -- the current president's father -- to launch an anti-jihadist offensive.

In June, the International Office for Migration (IOM) recorded more than 220,000 people displaced by attacks from armed groups in Lake Chad province.