Chad’s army said it had destroyed a rebel convoy in the north of Kanem province on Saturday (April 17).

National Chad Television showed soldiers celebrating their victory, destroyed vehicles in the desert and a large group of prisoners sitting on the ground.

At least 300 rebels were killed in the fighting and some 150 captured, according to the reporter travelling with the military to northern Kanem.

“The column was totally decimated,” army spokesman Azem Bermandoa Agouna said in a statement late on Saturday.

The rebel Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT), which is based on Chad’s northern frontier in Libya, attacked a Chadian border post on the evening of April 11, just as polling stations were closing in the country’s presidential election.

FACT claimed it had ‘liberated’ the province of Kanem, some 220 km (136 miles) from the capital N’Djamena. But the government on Sunday (April 18) denied the claims on a Facebook post, which said the people that were making claims of overtaking Kanem province were ‘not even on the ground, but somewhere in Europe.’

The United States on Sunday said rebel fighters in Chad appeared to be moving towards the capital N’Djamena and ordered non-essential staff to leave, warning of possible violence.

(Source: Reuters)