Detained Chadian opposition leader Succes Masra ends hunger strike

Chadian opposition leader and former Prime Minister Succès Masra, who has been in detention since mid-May, has ended his hunger strike after about a week of fasting, his lawyers announced Monday.

" President Masra, physically weakened but morally combative […] is suspending his food strike and will re-prepare for the rest of this procedure," the group of lawyers defending him announced in a statement Monday evening.

" His doctor, who was able to visit his bedside and consult with him, strongly recommended that he suspend this difficult and painful decision, especially since the medication he must take requires it," the statement read.

On Saturday, around twenty women from his opposition party, the Transformateurs, demonstrated in their undergarments in N'Djamena to demand the release of their leader.

Masra, arrested on May 16, announced his hunger strike last Tuesday in a letter made public by his lawyers. He is being prosecuted for " incitement to hatred and revolt, formation and complicity of armed gangs, complicity in murder, arson, and desecration of graves ."

On May 14, 42 people, " mostly women and children," were killed in Mandakao, in the Logone-Occidental region (southwest Chad), according to the Chadian justice system, which accuses Masra of having provoked this massacre through one of his public statements.

Success Masra, originally from the south of the country, enjoys widespread popularity among the predominantly Christian and southern populations, who feel marginalized by the predominantly Muslim regime in N'Djamena.