The president claims that 40 soldiers died in the attack on a military base in Chad

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DAKAR, Senegal (AP) – Chad’s president says unidentified attackers killed at least 40 soldiers in an overnight attack on a military base in the country’s west. Chadian President Idriss Deby visited the base in Barkaram, an island in the Lake Chad region, on Monday morning and announced the launch of a military operation to track down the attackers. Chad has long been fighting an insurgency in the west of the country, near the border with Nigeria. In March, an attack blamed by the government on Boko Haram killed seven soldiers, reviving fears of violence in the Lake Chad region after a period of peace following a successful operation launched in 2020 by Chad’s army to destroy the extremist group’s bases there.