Irish soldiers in hour-long firefight with Chad rebels

Irish troops came under fire at the weekend when rebels trying to topple President Idriss Deby attacked a town in eastern Chad where refugees were sheltering.

There was heavy fighting for about an hour, but it was not clear if there were casualties.

Eastern Chad is temporary home to some 300,000 refugees who have fled the Darfur conflict in Sudan. The region also has camps for 187,000 Chadians displaced by other fighting.

Chad has suffered from Darfur’s five-year-old conflict, just across the border with the EU deploying 3,700 troops, also including 2,200 French soldiers, to help protect Sudanese refugees and Chadians hit by the conflict.

The senior Irish army spokesman, Commandant Gavin Young, confirmed that an armoured Irish patrol returned fire during the attack on Saturday, and there were no Irish casualties.

He said Irish and Dutch soldiers based at Camp Ciara, the main Irish military camp near Goz-Beida, had since been providing armed escorts for aid workers caught up in the fighting to take refuge inside Camp Ciara.

Commandant Young said the troops came under fire as they monitored a clash between the Chadian army and rebel forces.

“It is not clear who fired upon our troops. Irish troops briefly returned warning fire from their armoured vehicles. There are no Irish casualties and all vehicles are operational,” he said, noting his Irish troops were reporting the situation as “calm, but tense”.

Camp Ciara is home to 390 soldiers from Ireland’s 97th Infantry Battalion and 60 Dutch Marines with many of the troops only arriving there 12 days ago.

(BMcC)