Chad, officially the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It borders Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west. Due to its distance from the sea and its largely desert climate, the country is sometimes referred to as the "Dead Heart of Africa".
The history of the Central African Republic is roughly composed of four distinct periods. The earliest period of settlement began around 10,000 years ago when nomadic people first began to settle, farm and fish in the region. The next period began around 1,000 to 3,000 years ago when several non-indigenous groups began to migrate into the region from other parts of the continent. The third period involved the colonial conquest and rule of the country by France and Germany which spanned from the late 1800s until 1960 when the Central African Republic became an independent state. The final period has been the era during which the Central African Republic has been an independent state.
General Idriss Déby Itno is a Chadian politician who has been the President of Chad since 1990. He is also head of the Patriotic Salvation Movement. Déby is of the Bidyat clan of the Zaghawa ethnic group. He took power at the head of a rebellion against President Hissène Habré in December 1990 and has since survived various rebellions against his own rule. He won elections in 1996 and 2001, and after term limits were eliminated he won again in 2006, 2011, and 2016. He added "Itno" to his surname in January 2006. He is a graduate of Muammar Gaddafi's World Revolutionary Center.
The Lord's Resistance Army insurgency is an ongoing guerrilla campaign waged by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) insurgent group since 1987. Currently, there is low-level LRA activity in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic. The movement is led by Joseph Kony, who proclaims himself the "spokesperson" of God and a spirit medium. It aims to overthrow Yoweri Museveni's Ugandan government and establish a theocratic state based on the Ten Commandments and Acholi tradition.
Joseph Rao Kony is the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a guerrilla group that formerly operated in Uganda.
The most recent Chadian Civil War began in December 2005. Since its independence from France in 1960, Chad has been swamped by the civil war between the Arab-Muslims of the north and the Sub-Saharan-Christians of the south. As a result, leadership and presidency in Chad drifted back and forth between the Christian southerners and Muslim northerners. When one side was in power, the other side usually started a revolutionary war to counter it.
Bossangoa is the capital of Ouham, one of the 14 prefectures of the Central African Republic. The town has a population of 36,478. It is located 303 km (189 mi) north of the country's capital, Bangui. The Ouham River passes through Bossangoa and on through a number of waterfalls east of the city before turning north to join the Chari River in Chad.
The Battle of N'Djamena was a battle between the forces of the revolutionary United Front for Democratic Change (UFCD) and the military of Chad that occurred on 13 April 2006 when rebel forces launched an assault on the capital of Chad in the pre-dawn hours, attempting to overthrow the government of President Idriss Déby Itno from their bases an estimated thousand miles east.
The War in Darfur, also nicknamed the Land Cruiser War, is a major armed conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan that began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel groups began fighting the government of Sudan, which they accused of oppressing Darfur's non-Arab population. The government responded to attacks by carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Darfur's non-Arabs. This resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians and the indictment of Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.
The Central African Republic Bush War was a civil war in the Central African Republic between Union of Democratic Forces for Unity (UFDR) rebels and government forces. The rebellion began after François Bozizé seized the nation's presidency in 2003. Actual fighting began in 2004. Around 10,000 people were displaced because of the civil unrest.
Events from the year 2007 in Chad.
Sudanese nomadic conflicts are non-state conflicts between rival nomadic tribes taking place in the territory of Sudan and, since 2011, South Sudan. Conflict between nomadic tribes in Sudan is common, with fights breaking out over scarce resources, including grazing land, cattle and drinking water. Some of the tribes involved in these clashes have been the Messiria, Maalia, Rizeigat and Bani Hussein Arabic tribes inhabiting Darfur and West Kordofan, and the Dinka, Nuer and Murle African ethnic groups inhabiting South Sudan. Conflicts have been fueled by other major wars taking place in the same regions, in particular the Second Sudanese Civil War, the War in Darfur and the Sudanese conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile.
The Sudanese conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile, also referred to by some media as the Third Sudanese Civil War, is an ongoing armed conflict in the Sudanese southern states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile between the Army of Sudan (SAF) and Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), a northern affiliate of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) in South Sudan. After some years of relative calm following the 2005 deal which ended the second Sudanese civil war between the Sudanese government and SPLM rebels, fighting broke out again in the lead-up to South Sudan independence on 9 July 2011, starting in South Kordofan on 5 June and spreading to the neighboring Blue Nile state in September. SPLM-N, splitting from newly-independent SPLM, took up arms against the inclusion of the two southern states in Sudan with no popular consultation and against the lack of democratic elections. The conflict is intertwined with the War in Darfur, since in November 2011 SPLM-N established a loose alliance with Darfuri rebels, called Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF).
Protests against the Syrian government and violence has been ongoing in the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor since March 2011, as part of the wider Syrian Civil War, but large-scale clashes started following a military operation in late July 2011 to secure the city of Deir ez-Zor. The rebels took over most of the province by late 2013, leaving only small pockets of government control around the city of Deir ez-Zor.
This is a broad timeline of the course of major events of the Syrian Civil War. It only includes major territorial changes and attacks and does not include every event.
The Central African Republic conflict is a civil war in the Central African Republic (CAR) involving the government, rebels from the Séléka coalition, and anti-balaka militias.
Séléka CPSK-CPJP-UFDR is an alliance of rebel militia groups that subjugated the Central African Republic (CAR) on March 24, 2013. After its official dissolution in September 2013, the remaining rebel groups became known as Ex-Séléka. Séléka leader Michel Djotodia became the nation's president from March 2013 until his resignation in January 2014. Members of Séléka are almost entirely Muslim.
An internal conflict in the Central African Republic (CAR) started essentially on 13 April 2013, when the government of President Michel Djotodia officially took over. The fighting was between the government of the Central African Republic's former Séléka coalition of rebel groups, who are mainly from the Muslim minority, and the mainly Christian anti-balaka coalition. The conflict was part of the ongoing Central African Republic Civil War (2012–present). International organisations, such as the United Nations, had warned of a possible genocide. UNSC resolution 2122 authorised the African-led International Support Mission to the Central African Republic (MISCA) to be deployed to the country, and France to lead operations with additional troops sent to bolster its force in the country. Following a summit of Economic Community of Central African States (CEEAC), including the attendance of all the country's MPs, Djotodia resigned from the presidency on 10 January 2014. The National Transitional Council chose Bangui mayor Catherine Samba-Panza as interim president on 20 January 2014. A period of lawlessness prevailed during the early days of her presidency with people moving into religiously cleansed neighbourhoods as the UN warned of a genocide. Anti-Balaka attacks continued against Muslim civilians.
The following lists events that happened during 2013 in the Central African Republic.
