Kidnappers have terrorised Chad’s southern Mayo-Kebbi West and Logone Oriental provinces for over two decades. Between 2020 and 2023, the number of victims and the overall amount paid in ransom by their families rose sharply, according to research by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS).
Local non-governmental organisations in the two provinces told the ISS that in 2022, 46 people were kidnapped, 12 assassinated, and 42,925,000 CFA was paid in ransom in Logone Oriental. In 2023, 41 people were abducted, eight were killed, two were missing and 52,405,000 CFA was handed over in Mayo-Kebbi.
Chad and its neighbours need to urgently address the problem to curb its spread and prevent collusion with other criminal and extremist forces at work at the Chad-Cameroon-Central African Republic (CAR) border areas. Mayo-Kebbi West and Logone Oriental, Chad’s two most affected provinces, are situated in this tri-border complex. State control is limited in this peripheral area, and criminals move easily across the porous borders.
The general security situation in this border area has deteriorated steadily due to decades of sporadic armed conflict in the Lake Chad Basin countries, and the emergence of Boko Haram in the early 2000s. Countries’ inability to curb the violence and maintain border security has given the problem a cross-border dimension.
