N’Djamena – A drone from Sudan killed at least 15 people on Wednesday evening in the border town of Tine in Chad, according to local sources.
“We regret that between 15 and 16 people were killed by a drone from Sudan at a funeral gathering in Tine, Chad,” a senior local official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP.
A military source also confirmed to AFP that 16 people were killed by a drone attributed to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that has been pitted against the Sudanese army since April 2023.
The RSF denied involvement in a post on Telegram, blaming Sudan’s army, its rival in the three-year civil war.
The conflict has spilled over into Chad despite the government having decided at the end of February to close its borders with Sudan after “repeated incursions” by armed groups involved in the war.
A rocket launched from Sudan caused damage in Tine at the end of February, where 15 soldiers and eight civilians had already lost their lives as a result of the conflict since late December, according to an AFP tally.
Darfur, a vast region in western Sudan bordering Chad, has been almost entirely controlled by RSF paramilitaries since they captured the city of El-Fasher in October.
On February 21, they claimed control of the border town of Tina, the twin of Tine in Chad, from which it is separated only by the narrow bed of a watercourse that is dry most of the time.
Nearly 1,400 kilometers long and located in a desert region, the border between Chad and Sudan remains porous and difficult to control.
The civil war in Sudan has killed several tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 12 million, nearly one million of them to Chad, according to the UN.
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Source: AFP
