Chad President, Idriss Deby is announced dead on Tuesday after being killed on the battlefield, in a fight against rebels.
The military confirmed the news on national television and radio.
The 68-year-old “has just breathed his last defending the sovereign nation on the battlefield,” army spokesman General Azem Bermandoa Agouna said in a statement read out on state television.
Deby’s death came in hours after electoral officials declared him winner of the April 11th presidential election, which will see him stay in power for another 6 years.
Deby postponed his victory speech to supporters and instead went to visit Chadian soldiers battling rebels, according to his campaign manager.
The rebel group Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT), which is based across the northern frontier with Libya, attacked a border post in the provinces of Tibesti and Kanem on election day and then advanced hundreds of kilometres south; but it suffered a setback over the weekend.
