Chad closed its border with Sudan on Monday after weekend clashes between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and rebels allied with the Sudanese army in the border town of Tine killed five Chadian soldiers.
Since it began in April 2023, the conflict in Sudan between the RSF and the national army has periodically spilt over into Chadian territory, causing casualties and property damage. Many refugees have crossed into Chad.
A Chadian government statement said the border would be closed until further notice. It said the decision was made because of “repeated incursions and violations” by rival forces in Sudan inside Chadian territory.
“The Chadian government, under international law, reserves the right to respond to any aggression or breach of its territory and border,” it said. The statement, a copy of which has been seen by The National, made no mention of the five soldiers killed.
Reporting from Chad, Reuters on Monday quoted a government official as saying five soldiers and three civilians were killed during Saturday's clashes between the RSF and army-allied rebels. Twelve other people were wounded, according to the unnamed official.
A border guard officer in Tine confirmed the deaths of the five soldiers and said additional security measures were needed to protect civilians on the Chadian side of the border, according to the news agency.
The RSF announced its capture of Tine in northern Darfur on Sunday and released a video clip showing its fighters there celebrating the capture of the town. There was no word from the army or its allied rebels on the fall of the town.
The closure of the border with Chad is the latest example of the risk of the civil war in Sudan dragging in neighbouring states and having negative impacts on ties between Sudan and other countries in the region.
Sudan's Foreign Ministry, which is aligned with the army, has denounced Uganda for hosting RSF commander Gen Mohamed Dagalo over the weekend. It said the government in Kampala flouted international law when it welcomed him, given the atrocities that have been committed by the RSF during the war.
Gen Dagalo met Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni in Entebbe on Friday. The African Union appointed the Ugandan leader to mediate in the war in Sudan. He said that he emphasised a “peaceful political solution” to the conflict during his talks with the Sudanese paramilitary commander.
The Sudanese Foreign Ministry, however, said the Entebbe meeting was an “affront to humanity as a whole, before it is an affront to the Sudanese people”.
Sudan's military-backed government has reacted similarly when other countries in the region, including Kenya, have hosted Gen Dagalo. It has claimed in the past that the RSF was recruiting mercenaries from some of Sudan's neighbours to fight the army. Both the army and the RSF stand accused of war crimes in the conflict.
Nearly three years after the war broke out, Sudan's army controls the capital Khartoum as well as the central, northern and eastern regions of the vast Afro-Arab nation. The RSF holds Darfur in western Sudan and parts of neighbouring Kordofan, where the fighting has shifted since the army lost its last foothold in Darfur in October.
The war broke out when months of tension between army chief Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan and Gen Dagalo over their roles in a democratic Sudan boiled over into armed conflict in Africa's third-largest country.
The war has devastated Sudan, and led to the world's largest humanitarian crisis, with some 25 million people – about half the population – facing hunger. At least 12 million people have been displaced. There are no reliable estimates on casualties, but tens of thousands are believed to have been killed in the conflict so far.
Al Shafie Ahmed reported from Kampala, Uganda.
