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The country was a key player in the G5 Sahel regional organization, created in 2014 to confront jihadism in particular. But G5 had taken a backseat after the withdrawal of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
A constitutional referendum is being held in Chad on Sunday. A landlocked country in the Sahel, governed by a military junta, Chad is a strategic ally of the West in the anti-jihadist fight. The country was a key player in the G5 Sahel regional organization, created in 2014 to confront jihadism in particular. But G5 had taken a backseat after the withdrawal of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
Lake Chad, on the borders of Niger, Cameroon, and Nigeria, has lost 90% of its surface area in recent decades due to excessive use of its water, prolonged droughts and the effects of climate change. This has contributed to the impoverishment of millions of fishermen and farmers, making this basin a hideout and recruiting ground for the Nigerian jihadist group Boko Haram and its dissident branch affiliated with the Islamic State organization (ISWAP).
The World Bank estimates that 42.3% of Chad’s approximately 18 million inhabitants live below the national poverty line, in this country which has been an oil producer since 2003. It is, according to the UN, the second country least developed in the world, after South Sudan. Around 2.1 million people suffer from severe food insecurity, struggling to have one meal a day, the World Food Program (WFP) warned in October. Chad hosts more than a million refugees from neighboring countries, including more than 900,000 Sudanese, according to the UN
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Thanks to the support of France, a former colonial power, Idriss Déby Itno in 1990 overthrew the dictator Hissène Habré, whose armies he had commanded. He had a highly criticized human rights record. After ruling the country with an iron fist for more than 30 years, he was killed while going to the front against rebels in April 2021.
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His son, General Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, was immediately proclaimed president by the soldiers loyal to his father and was also quickly dubbed by the international community. The transition period before elections, initially supposed to last 18 months, was extended by two years in October 2022. Chad still welcomes the general staff of French operations in the Sahel, while other countries have come under Russian influence.
