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Chad: Ethnic Clash in South Kills 12, Wounds 16

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
NEWS
November 1, 2004
Posted to the web November 1, 2004
Ndjamena
Ethnic fighting between rival mobs of Muslim and non-Muslim residents killed 12
people and injured another 16 in the south Chadian town of Bebedjia, the
country's defence minister said on Monday.
Bebedjia lies about 35 km from Chad's oilfields at Doba, the largest private
sector investment ever undertaken in Africa, which have been pumping crude oil
for the last year.
Residents in the town, most of whose inhabitants are Christian or practise
traditional African religions, say its proximity to the oil project has
attracted people looking for jobs, notably nomadic Muslims from the north of
Chad.
"A dispute between a trader and a customer escalated," Defence Minister
Emmanuel Naringar told IRIN from the town, 600 km south of the capital,
Ndjamena.
Officials and aid workers said the violence had flared on Wednesday when a
young trader belonging to the Ngambaye ethnic group, dominant in the south-
western region of the country, refused to sell a bag to a Muslim from the
north. Their fight then sucked in other members of their communities.
"The events were so violent the government could not wait," the minister said.
"We came rapidly to calm things down, restore state authority, reassure the
people and make sure peaceful coexistence remains a reality in the area."
Another witness in the town said on Monday that several houses and part of the
market had been burnt down during the clashes and some families had been forced
to seek shelter at the town's hospital and church.
Yorongar Ngarledji, the town's representative in parliament and a member of the
opposition, put the death toll much higher, saying 33 people had in fact been
killed.
"This is what happens because of the difficulty of cohabitation between the
indigenous population who are Christian farmers and the Muslim herdsmen,"
Ngarledji told IRIN.
Eleyakim Vanambyl, a journalist for a Doba-based radio station, said last
week's violence was not the first such incident in the area and that similar
tensions had erupted a month ago in the nearby village of Bikou, although no-
one was killed.

   

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