The alleged jihadis were captured in a military operation on Lake Chad earlier this month.

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Autopcies on four of the dead revealed they had died of a toxic substance that caused heart attacks in some and asphyxiation in others.

One possibility being probed is that the 44, who were among the 58 Boko Haram fighters captures by Chadian security forces, took part in a collective suicide.

Chad’s human rights watchdog group says the 58 captives had been locked in a cell for three days without food or water.

The government of President Idriss Deby denies this.

The operation on Lake Chad left more than 1000 Boko Haram fighters dead.

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They say they’ve driven the Islamist terrorist off  their hideouts on the islands in the giant Lake Chad.

Chad army spokesman Colonel Azem Agouna says Operation Bohoma Anger was launched after Boko Haram killed 100 of his soldiers last month.

52 Chadian soldiers died in the operation that ended earlier this week.

In addition to the 1000 Boko Haram killed, Chadian troops destroyed 52 large motorized canoes known as pirogues belonging to the terrorists. 

President Idriss Deby has visited the area.

He said it was a pity Chad was not supported by neighbors Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon against the jihadis that threaten them all.

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The jihadis approached the fishing village disguised as traders.

The attack on the remote village took place before Christmas.  News of it has taken a fortnight to emerge.

Boko Haram was formed in Nigeria a decade ago and and since spread its operations in Chad, Cameroon and Niger.

The victims from last month’s attack are mainly Cameroonians but many other nationals are fishermen on Lake Chad.

An unknown number of people remain unaccounted for.

The island has a become fertile ground for terrorists because the multi-national task force charged with patrolling the area is finding it too expensive and too dangerous to cover properly. 

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The organisation’s president, who’s visiting this area known as the Sahel,  says it’s experiencing an explosive mix of conflict and climate change.

ICRC President Peter Maurer says violence and climate change are weakening public services in the Sahel and disrupting the peoples’ traditional survival methods.

Added to the endemic poverty, traditional conflict between farmers and herders and widespread criminality there are the growing  problems of diminishing land and unreliable access to water because of climate change.

The world needs to adopt a new strategy, he says to help Mali and Chad withstand the climate shock.

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Rex Tillerson will visit five countries regarded as US security partners in what will be the first high-profile visit to the continent by a member of the Trump administration

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s safari follows the scatological  remarks President Donald Trump used to dismiss African countries last January.

Tillerson will visit Chad, Djibouti, Kenya, Ethiopia and Nigeria.

Going for him is his government selling warplanes to Nigeria to fight Boko Haram and US drones being launched against Al Shabaab terrorists in Somalia.

But Tillerson will have to explain why his department has failed to fill several key posts in Africa and why American trade with the continent is slumping.

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The raids have been sponsored by a German government crackdown on organized crime.

Half of the victims freed by the Interpol operation are children.

Those arrested are accused of forcing their victims into begging and prostitution and face charges including human trafficking, forced labour and child exploitation.

In one case, a 16-year-old girl was duped into thinking she would be working in Mali but was instead made to go into sex work to pay back her travel costs to a sponsor.

The raids were conducted in Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal.

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A summit in Chad’s capital N’jamena ratified a 17-year-old agreement binding a market of 30-million consumers.

Equatorial Guinea and Gabon are two small, oil-rich states that have had reservations about allowing visa-free access to citizens of larger and more troubled Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The N’jamena summit brought them aboard the Central African Economic Monetary Community or CEMAC.

They’ve approved the regional development bank spending two-and-a-half million Euros as seed money for the implementation of the draft agreement signed in 2013

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Mahamt beat off four other candidates, three of them. like himself were foreign ministers of their countries.

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Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma breathes a sigh of relief that she’s able to come to tend to domestic political priorities.

She’s the ANC Women’s League candidate to succeed her former husband Jacob Zuma as president of the ruling party – a position that is virtually guaranteed to make her South Africa’s next president.

African leaders have not indicated why they favoured Moussa Faki Mahamat over Senegal’s Bathily Abdoulaye and the foreign ministers of Botswana, Equatorial Guinea and Kenya.

He has his work cut out leading the day to day activities of the continental organization where the presidents have the final say.

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It’s underlined support against Islamists in five countries

On his first overseas visit as Prime Minister, Bernard Cazeneuve says France has to make clear and ambitious budgetary decisions in support of its army.

He’s in Chad where he’s promised financial support.

Chad, together with Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso are covered by France’s operation Barkhane where it’s deployed 4 000 soldiers.

In addition to this Sahel operation France is fighting extremists in the Middle East.

Cazeneuve tells his soldiers to prepare for a long war in an environment that has undergone dramatic shifts.

He’s hailed these troops fighting on fronts thousands of kilometres away from their homes, risking their lives to save others.

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They’ve  commended the courageous testimony  of  69 survivors of detention and abuses, including a woman whom Habre was found guilty of raping four times.

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The United States welcomes the judgement of the Extraordinary African Chambers in Senegal, calling it  a landmark in the global fight against impunity for atrocities, including war crimes and crimes against humanity.

It says Habre’s eight-year term as the president of Chad until 1990 was marked by large-scale, systematic violations, including the murder of  at least 40 000 people, widespread sexual violence, mass imprisonment, enforced disappearance, and torture.

Amnesty International says the judgment  marks a significant moment for international justice and a huge relief for the tens of thousands of victims who have waited for this day for over 25 years.

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