According to the government, clashes between artisanal gold miners in northern Chad left around 100 people dead and 40 injured on May 23 and 24. All mining operations in the area have been suspended, and the government is evacuating people. According to the BBC, these numbers come from a fact-finding mission that the government sent on May 25, and a large military contingent is said to have reestablished peace. The clashes occurred in the Kouri Bougoudi district near the Libyan border, an area that attracts many miners from neighboring countries and across Chad. The violence broke out at night and stemmed from a “mundane dispute between two individuals,” according to Defence Minister Daoud Yaya Brahim. He also stated that the clashes were between people from Mauritania and Libya.

Though the defense minister said that a military contingent restored calm to the area, according to the AFP, some groups are blaming security forces for a number of deaths, putting the death toll higher than the official one. Mahamat Nour Ibedou, the head of Chad’s National Human Rights Commission, said the military who were sent to calm the dispute fired on people and put the death toll at 200, according to the BBC. The head of an opposition party in Chad also gave this number, and another rebel group in the region said that violence had occurred “under the complicit gaze of the security forces,” which government officials deny.

The outbreak of violence in this situation clearly had to be remedied to mitigate injury and loss of life, but a military contingent entering the area may have escalated the tensions and caused additional violence. Rather than sending armed military groups to subdue conflicts such as this one, governments should attempt nonviolent resolutions. While it is understandable for groups entering these situations to fear for their safety and thus desire the protection that an armed group is able to provide, using the military as conflict resolution can lead to seeing violence as the first option with which we should confront violence, rather than searching for other solutions.

This area has seen violence between miners previously, according to Chad’s defense minister, and many of the mines are illegal. Many of the clashes have stemmed from conflict between different ethnic groups that have traveled to the area for mining. In January 2019, fighting between Libyan Arabs and people from eastern Chad killed several people. 

The region is also known for growing revolts, and Chad’s communication minister described it as a “hostile zone, almost lawless.” This repeated history of violence can foster the belief that the region will only understand aggression as a response, but this is an unhelpful perspective to mitigate this violence. Rather, we should attempt to use diplomatic methods and see armed force as only a last resort for self-defense instead of a first response to conflict.