He just won a sixth term in office last week.

Chad’s president Idriss Déby dies ‘on battlefield’, military says (The Guardian)

Idriss Déby, the veteran president of Chad, has died, national radio in the central African state has said.

A statement from the military said the 68-year-old ruler, in power for 30 years, had been killed “on the battlefield” after being injured fighting rebels but gave no further details.

Déby last week won a sixth term in presidential elections. The poll prompted an invasion by a Libya-based rebel group called the Force for Change and Concord in Chad (Fact), which military officials had said was repulsed at the weekend.

Officials had said the veteran politician would not give a victory speech after the polls because he had travelled to the frontlines to take charge of military operations.

“He died as he lived, as a free man, with a weapon in his hand,” Abderrahman Koulamallah, a former rebel and presidential adviser, told French radio network RFI.

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