Forty soldiers are killed in an attack on a military base in Chad, the presidency says

Associated press

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Chad’s presidency says unidentified assailants killed at least 40 soldiers during an overnight attack on a military base in the country’s west. Chad’s President Idriss Deby visited the base in Barkaram, an island in Chad’s Lake District, on Monday morning and announced the launch of a military operation to hunt down the attackers. Chad has long struggled with an insurgency in the west of the country, near the border with Nigeria. In March, an attack that the government blamed on Boko Haram killed seven soldiers, reviving fears of violence in Lake Chad after a period of peace following a successful operation launched by the Chadian army in 2020 to close down the bases of the extremist group there.