SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Chad’s newly re-elected President Idriss Deby, in power for three decades, has died while visiting troops on the front line of a fight against northern rebels, an army spokesman said on Tuesday.
Deby, 68, was declared the winner of a sixth term in office on Monday.
His campaign said on Monday that he was headed to the front lines to join troops battling “terrorists”, according to Reuters.
Rebels based across the northern frontier in Libya attacked a border post on election day and then advanced hundreds of kilometers south across the desert.
He came to power in a rebellion in 1990 and is one of the Africa’s longest-serving leaders. He was a staunch ally of France and the United States in the fight against militants in the aird Sahel region.
