AA / Yaoundé / Peter Kum
In Chad, security forces fired on protesters on October 20, killing at least 50 people and injuring dozens more, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday, while demanding impartial investigations to establish responsibility.
“Chadian authorities should immediately ensure that an independent and effective investigation determines whether the use of lethal force by the security services was a justified and proportionate response to any alleged violence,” Lewis said in a statement Wednesday. Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
This NGO noted last Thursday that “the security forces used excessive force, including live ammunition fired indiscriminately, to disperse demonstrations organized by the opposition” in Chad.
“People should be able to demonstrate peacefully against government policy without being shot or killed,” Mr Mudge added.
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), activists, demonstrators and the media claimed that unidentified men in civilian vehicles fired at protesters last Thursday.
Addressing his compatriots on Sunday evening, the president of the transition of Chad, General Mahamat Idriss Deby, indicated that “it is not simple demonstrations which have been mastered but a real insurrection carefully planned to create chaos in the country “.
But the NGO HRW stressed that it “has received testimonies from protesters and witnesses that some protesters have thrown stones, and has seen unauthenticated photos which show a handful of protesters armed with knives, but did not found no evidence that protesters had firearms.
Demonstrations against the extension of the duration of the transition to two years in Chad have left “about fifty” dead and “more than 300” injured, according to Prime Minister Saleh Kebzabo, who decreed a curfew on Thursday evening. from “6 p.m. to 6 a.m.” in N’Djamena, Moundou and two other towns until “total restoration of order”.
The public prosecutor, Moussa Wade Djibrine, announces the opening of a judicial inquiry and the instruction given to arrest the perpetrators and co-perpetrators of crimes and acts of vandalism during the events of October 20.
This violence was condemned by the international community, which not only called for appeasement but demanded investigations.
On October 20, the US State Department issued a statement in which it condemned “the attack that took place in front of the main gate of the United States Embassy, in which attackers in civilian clothes in vehicles soldiers crossed the police checkpoints and killed four people”.
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