Irish troops are patrolling an area of Chad today that saw fierce fighting yesterday and where they came under fire.
Rebels trying to topple President Idriss Deby attacked a town in the east of the country where thousands of refugees are taking shelter.
There was heavy fighting for about an hour in Goz-Beida before the gunfire died down, said an aid worker in the town. It was not clear if there were casualties.
Eastern Chad is temporary home to some 300,000 refugees who have fled the Darfur conflict in Sudan. The region also has camps for 187,000 Chadians displaced by fighting both locally and in Darfur. Chad has suffered from Darfur’s five-year-old conflict, just across the border.
The EU is deploying a total of 3,700 troops, including 2,200 French soldiers, to help protect Sudanese refugees and Chadians uprooted by the conflict.
Ireland’s senior Army spokesman, Commandant Gavin Young, confirmed that an armoured patrol came under fire and returned fire during the attack. There were no Irish casualties.
He said Irish and Dutch soldiers based at Camp Ciara, the Irish camp near Goz-Beida, have since been providing armed escorts for aid workers caught up in the fighting to take refuge inside Camp Ciara. He could not say how many aid workers had taken up the offer.
Commandant Young said the troops came under fire as they were monitoring a clash between the Chadian army and rebel forces.
“It is not clear who fired upon our troops. Irish troops briefly returned warning fire from their armoured vehicles. There are no Irish casualties and all vehicles are operational,” he said.
He said Irish troops were reporting the security situation in Goz-Beida last night as “calm but tense”.
Camp Ciara is home to 390 soldiers from Ireland’s 97th Infantry Battalion and 60 Dutch Marines. Many of the troops arrived there only 12 days ago.