by Nurat Uthman
France began withdrawing soldiers from Chad on Friday, the country’s defence ministry said, after N’Djamena last month abruptly ended military cooperation with the former colonial power.
A contingent of 120 soldiers left for France from a military airport in the capital, the ministry said in a statement on Facebook, 10 days after French fighter aircraft left the Sahel country for good.
Chad had been a key link in France’s military presence in Africa and its last foothold in the wider Sahel region after the forced withdrawal of French troops from Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger in the wake of a series of military coups.
But it announced on November 28 its decision to end a longstanding defence accord with Paris.
“At midday, 120 French soldiers took off from the military airport of N’Djamena on board an Airbus A330 Phoenix MRTT, headed for France,” the ministry said in a statement on Facebook.
The French army, which had some 1,000 personnel in the country, did not immediately comment on the announcement.
The departure on Friday of French soldiers took place in the presence of Chadian military authorities, which “testifies to the intensity of cooperation between the two countries in the field of security”, the statement said.
