AUTHORITIES in Chad say the military has foiled an armed assault on the presidential complex in the capital N’Djamena during which 19 people were killed.

Security forces said they managed to prevent an attempt by around 24 armed fighters to storm the presidential complex on Wednesday.

Chad Foreign Minister and government spokesman Abderaman Koulamallah said: “There were 18 dead and six injured” among the attackers “and we suffered one death and three injured, one of them seriously.” 

Mr Koulamallah appeared in a video hours after the shooting, surrounded by soldiers and with a gun on his belt, saying: “The situation is completely under control, the destabilisation attempt was put down.”

The attack coincided with an official visit by China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Hours before the shooting erupted, Mr Wang had met Chad’s President Mahamat Idriss Deby and other senior officials. 

Mr Koulamallah said Mr Deby was inside the presidential complex when the attack took place. 

Mr Deby took power after rebels killed his father, longstanding President Idriss Deby, in 2021. The elder Mr Deby had ruled Chad since a coup in the early 1990s.

Mr Koulamallah said they were “probably not” rebels, describing them instead as drunken “Pieds Nickeles” — a reference to a French comic featuring hapless crooks. But a security source later said the incident  was most likely an “attempted terrorist attack.”

The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “Individuals in three vehicles attacked the military camps around the president’s office, but the army neutralised them.” 

The attack comes less than two weeks after Chad held a contested general election that the government hailed as a key step towards ending military rule, but was marked by low turnout and opposition allegations of fraud.

An opposition call for voters to boycott the polls left the field open for candidates aligned with the president.

Chad is a former French colony which is rich in oil resources but one of the poorest countries on the African continent.

Poverty is widespread, with 44.8 per cent of the population living below the poverty line in 2022. 

Chad ended a defence and security agreement with France last November which led to Paris having to withdraw 1,000 military personnel from the country.

The departure follows France’s remvoal from the Sahel nations of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.

Senegal and Ivory Coast have also instructed France to vacate military bases on their territory.