Chad detains former prime minister Masra after deadly clashes

Chad’s former prime minister and opposition leader Succes Masra was taken into custody by security forces on Friday, in what his party called an “abduction.”

Public prosecutor Oumar Mahamat Kedelaye said Masra was arrested in connection with an intercommunal clash in Chad’s southwest province of Logone Occidental that killed 42 people.

Masra is accused of inciting hatred and violence through social media posts that called on the population to arm themselves against a community in the area, according to the prosecutor. It is unclear what specific posts the prosecutor was referring to.

Clashes between herders and farmers, who accuse the herders of grazing livestock on their land, are common in the Central African country.

Masra's Transformers party said in a statement that their leader was “kidnapped” in his residence and expressed “deep concern over this brutal action carried out outside any known judicial procedures and in blatant violation of the civil and political rights guaranteed by the constitution.”

Ndolembai Sade Njesada, the party's vice president, released video appearing to show armed men in uniforms escorting Masra out of a residential building.

Masra is one of the main opposition figures against President Mahamat Idriss Deby, who seized power after his father, who spent three decades in power, was killed fighting rebels in 2021.

In 2022, Masra fled Chad after the military government suspended his party and six others in a clampdown on protests against Deby’s decision to extend his time in power by two more years. More than 60 people were killed in the protests, which the government condemned as “an attempted coup.”

Following his return from exile he was appointed prime minister in January 2024 in a bid to appease tensions with the opposition, four months before the presidential election. Deby won the election, but the results were contested by the opposition which had claimed victory and alleged electoral fraud.

Masra resigned from his role as prime minister shortly after the election.