Chad: Former PM Succès Masra leaves country for medical treatment

Chad’s former Prime Minister, Succès Masra, has left the country for medical treatment two months after his release from prison following a presidential pardon.

He reportedly headed to Cameroon on Tuesday, before travelling to Ivory Coast where his family lives, and then on to France.

Masra departed after taking part in a tribute to victims of the October 2022 crackdown on demonstrations demanding a return to constitutional order.

An associate said the former prime minister’s health had deteriorated during his year in detention, but his departure for treatment was delayed as he waited for his passport to be renewed.

The opposition leader, and fierce critic of President Mahamat Idriss Déby, was arrested in May 2025 and sentenced to 20 years in jail in August of the same year.

He was accused, along with 67 co-defendants, of causing a clash between herders and farmers in the south-west of the country in which at least 42 people died.

Masra has denied the charges against him, which included hate speech, xenophobia, and having incited a massacre.

The head of the Transformers party ran in the contested May 2024 presidential election, which was won by then-transitional president Mahamat Idriss Déby.

Masra did not accept the results and claimed that the vote was rigged.

He later agreed to serve as prime minister, which he did from January until his arrest in May last year, after signing a reconciliation deal with Deby.

Déby’s decision to pardon Masra came four days after the president promised to free several convicted individuals, to foster national unity, peace, and reconciliation.

The Déby family has ruled Chad for more than three decades. The military installed Déby as Chad's leader after his father, Idriss Déby Itno, was killed by rebels in 2021.