troung

Chad to send troops to Central African Republic Thu Nov 16, 2:42 PM ET

N'DJAMENA, Chad (AFP) - Chad is to send military reinforcements to the Central African Republic to help fight rebels who have seized several towns in the northeast of the country, the Chadian prime minister said.

"We must do more to help the CAR government and to reinforce (Chadian) forces already present (in CAR) and to thus beat the aggression by the Sudanese government," Prime Minister Pascal Yoadimnadji said.

"Chad cannot remain indifferent to the situation that prevails in Central African Republic," he said in a speech to the National Assembly in the Chadian capital N'Djamena.

The prime minister did not say how many soldiers he planned to deploy in CAR.

More than 100 Chadian soldiers are already stationed in the CAR, which borders Chad to the south, as part of the multinational force of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC).

After taking the town of Birao, 800 kilometres (500 miles) northeast of Bangui, rebels in the CAR progressed to the southwest and are threatening the mining town of Bria, 600 kilometres northeast of the capital.

"At the moment we speak, two columns of mercenaries are progressing towards the towns of Bria and Ndele," Yoadimnadji.

According to humanitarian organisations, several thousand of Bria's 45,000 inhabitants escaped before the rebel advance.

At the start of the month, Chadian President Idriss Deby Itno and CAR President Francois Bozize accused Sudan of supporting the rebel movements fighting against them. Khartoum has categorically denied the charges.

The Chadian head of state is one of the main supporters of General Bozize, who he helped take power in March 2003 by toppling former president Ange-Felix Patasse.

__________________
To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway