Chad will bury veteran ruler Idriss Deby Itno on Friday as concerns mount over the loss of a lynchpin in the fight against jihadism in the Sahel and uncertainty over the country’s democratic future.
President Emmanuel Macron of France, the former colonial power, will attend the ceremony along with a dozen other heads of state and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
The funeral, complete with military honours, is scheduled to take place in the morning in N’Djamena’s main square, La Place de la Nation.
The ceremony is to be followed by prayers at the capital’s Grand Mosque, after which Deby is to be laid to rest alongside his father in the village of Amdjarass next to his birthplace Berdoba, in the far east of the desert country near the border with Sudan.