BuaNews (Tshwane)
Lavinia Mahlangu
4 February 2008
Pretoria — South Africans in Chad have been advised to make their way to the French Military base and prepare for evacuation, following a failed coup d'etat in the central African state on Sunday.
The South African Diplomatic Mission in Chad is advising South Africans to move, if safe to do so, to the French Military base or the French school as part of the overall evacuation plan.
"Plans by the French military to assist with the evacuation 15 South Africans alongside other foreign nationals from Chad remain in place," the Department of Foreign Affairs said from Pretoria on Monday.
"The Government extends its gratitude to the French authorities for consenting to the evacuation of the South Africans alongside other foreign nationals."
Chad's government forces stopped an attempted coup by rebels who tried to storm the presidential palace on Sunday.
The assault marked the second day of fighting in what is the second attempted coup against President Idriss Deby in as many years.
No time table has been set by the French evacuation from N'Djamena.
The 15 nationals are reported to be employees of mining and cellular phone companies, based in the central African nation.
The department urged South African families who have relatives in Chad, but had not been contacted to call Consular Services at (012) 351-1000.
The South African government has called on all parties to co-operate with the African Union-led mediation effort aimed at finding a lasting political solution in Chad.
"We announce categorically that whatever happens in Chad, if the rebellion succeeds certainly we will ex-communicate them from the African Union until normalcy and democratic institutions return to that country," said Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, the current AU Chair at the recently concluded AU Summit.
The Saudi Press Agency reports that the wife and daughter of a Saudi employee at the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Ndjamena were killed during a bomb attack on the Saudi ambassador's residence on Saturday.
At the time of the explosion, all of the mission's staff and their families were at the ambassador's residence, preparing for evacuation, the ministry spokesman told the SPA.
Beyond this, the death toll from the violence is not known, however, French humanitarian organisation Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) reports its staff have operated on 50 people wounded in the clashes.
"Most of the wounded are civilians, suffering from bullet wounds. According to the Chadian Red Cross about 200 wounded people in total have been referred to various hospitals in the past 48 hours," the MSF said.
"Continuous fighting is making it very hard to access the injured and take them to medical structures."
The MSF team consist of 15 staff, currently working in a hospital in N'Djamena. The staff compliment includes a surgeon, an anaesthetist, two doctors, nurses, logisticians, and the MSF head of mission.
The MSF is organising a charter plane from Bangui, capital of the Central African republic, with medical and surgical materials, including a kit for 50 surgical interventions and a kit for treating 150 wounded people, to reinforce hospitals in N'Djamena.
The European Union announced Friday it was delaying the deployment of troops and equipment.
The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has already had to evacuate most of its staff from the town of Guereda in eastern Chad.
In 2005, new rebel groups emerged in western Sudan and have repeatedly attacked eastern Chad, despite the existence of peace agreements signed in December 2006 and October 2007.
Power remains in the hands of an ethnic minority.
Last year the Security Council authorised the deployment of a multi-dimensional UN presence in eastern Chad and north-eastern CAR.
This deployment included a peacekeeping mission to be known as MINURCAT, which is set to stabilise the region. The UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations is currently continuing its preparations to set up the mission.
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