Twenty-three relatives of the president of the Socialist Party Without Borders (PSF) Yaya Dillo Djérou, arrested after the death of this fierce opponent killed by the army two months before the presidential election in Chad, have been released, AFP learned on Thursday of the family.
The official announcement of their release should be made on the occasion of the ceremony of elevation to the rank of marshal of President Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, scheduled for Saturday according to consistent sources.
According to a family member who wished to remain anonymous, “there are 23 of them returning to the family” early Thursday afternoon.
“Of the 23, two are doing well, the rest are completely weakened,” said the same source without giving further details.
The secretary general of the PSF, Robert Gam, “kidnapped by intelligence service agents” according to the party, is not among those released, said the same family member.
The release of these 23 PSF activists could not be confirmed from official sources.
In May, the NGO Amnesty International denounced the “secret” detention of 26 people, including three children, in Korotoro prison, in the middle of the desert. They were arrested in February 2024 following the assault on the PSF headquarters, during which party president Yaya Dillo was killed by the army. “Assassinated” according to the opposition, with a “point-blank bullet to the head” according to the PSF.
Amnesty had urged the Chadian authorities to respect human rights, and called for prisoners to be “released without delay” if they are not “promptly charged with an offense” and “tried in accordance with international standards of justice.” fairness of trials.
National and international human rights organizations regularly denounce the violent “repression” – sometimes bloody – of all opposition.
The deceased Yaya Dillo draws behind him a significant component of the Zaghawa clan, a minority ethnic group from which the Déby clan comes, as do the main officers within the army.
Mahamat Déby was proclaimed by the army on April 20, 2021 head of state, at the head of a junta of 15 generals, upon the death of his father Idriss Déby Itno, killed by rebels after 30 years in power.
Three years later, on May 6, 2024, Mahamat Déby was elected president in a vote boycotted by part of the opposition and described by international NGOs as “neither free”, “nor credible”.
At the end of December, provincial and local elections and the first legislative elections since 2011 are due to be held. But the opposition parties are calling for a boycott of the elections, a “masquerade” played out in advance according to them.
