File Picture: shows people walk at the entrance to Tine in eastern Chad.
Chad’s government said Monday it was closing the border with Sudan until further notice, following clashes between Chadian soldiers and armed groups involved in the civil war across the frontier.
“This decision follows repeated incursions and violations committed by the forces involved in the conflict in Sudan on Chadian territory,” Communications Minister Mahamat Gassim Cherif said in a statement, adding that he wanted to halt “any risk of the conflict spreading” to his country.
Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have been fighting government troops for almost three years in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people.
It has forced 11mn people to flee their homes, triggering what the UN says is one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
The paramilitaries have conducted several operations near the Chad border and at least nine Chadian soldiers have been killed in separate incidents since December.
The RSF last year consolidated its hold over Sudan’s western Darfur region, leaving only enclaves outside its control.
It advanced on the frontier again on Saturday, claiming to have captured the border town of Al-Tina before army-allied militias said they had repelled the attack.
Many of the town’s residents have already fled to Tine on the Chadian side, where tens of thousands of Sudanese have sought safety since the war broke out.
Monday’s statement said Chad “reserves the right to retaliate against any aggression or violation of the inviolability of its territory and its borders”.
“Cross-border movements of goods and people are suspended,” the text said, adding that “exceptional exemptions” for humanitarian reasons would still be possible.
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