The Chadian army has destroyed five Boko Haram bases in its western Lac region, according to President Idriss Déby. The coordinated assault was in retaliation to a Boko Haram attack on 23 March 2020 that left nearly 100 Chadian soldiers dead. 

Déby, who has been the president for 30 years, said it was the worst attack his military has ever suffered. Residents of the Boma Peninsula, where the attack took place, were forced to flee, stoking fears that worse is to come for those caught in the ongoing conflict. 

The attack lasted for seven hours, during which militants killed approximately 92 Chadian soldiers, and stole their weapons, taking off in speedboats. Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) have been stepping up their attacks in the region in recent months, prompting the Chadian government to declare a state of emergency in the two departments bordering Nigeria and Niger. 

According to The Guardian, the Chadian military asked civilians to clear the area immediately following the attack. This will add to the estimated 169,000 people already internally displaced within the country, according to the Emergency Response Coordination Centre of the European Union. 

Chad has long been an ally of the west in the fight against Islamic insurgents in the Sahel, but questions remain around President Déby’s commitment to human rights and the betterment of all peoples in Chad. Freedom House has rated the country as ‘not free,’ and Transparency International gave it a low score of 20/100 for corruption. 

Déby ascended to the presidency of Chad in 1990, supported by Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and Omar al-Bashir in Sudan. Currently, he is seen as a key ally of the west: his elite army, comprised mainly of members of his own ethnic group, has sent troops to Nigeria and Niger to fight Islamic insurgents. 

But now, there are concerns that this new escalation of violence will weaken Chad’s military capabilities and cause another wave of displacement among civilians. Jacob Zenn, a senior research fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, believes increased fighting with Boko Haram will stretch the military, and President Déby’s rule, too thinly. “I think Chad will risk becoming too ambitious in attacking ISWAP and Boko Haram. That would lead to a snowball effect of more attacks in Chad, and so I think it’s just a sign of more violence in Chad to come,” he said.

Boko Haram and Islamic State in West Africa Province have long been taking advantage of the Lake Chad region, its porous borders and its marshy landscape. Originating in Borno State, Nigeria, Boko Haram have been waging a terror campaign in Western and Central Africa for over a decade. It is thought that the cultural and religious influence of Borno State in western Chad has led to the ease with which the group seeped across the border. 

According to the UN, Boko Haram have killed up to 30,000 people, and displaced 3 million.