Urgent prayer is being requested by Grace Brethren International Mission staff for GBIM-related personnel in Chad, Africa, who are leaving due to insecurity in the country. You’re asked to pray for their safety and for protection for the facilities on the station they will leave behind.
Today is election day in the central African country. The current government does not seem to have strong popular backing, but neither does any of the opposition or rebel groups either.
This election follows on the heels of an attempted coup d’etat on April 12 in the Chadian capital, N’Djamena. At that time government troops reportedly successfully repelled rebel troops advancing on the capital.
Since then the situation in the Chadian capital has been unsettled by rumors that rebels are reorganizing for another attempt on the president.
GBIM’s team has been located in the south of the country, relatively far from the capital. They have been on high alert for several weeks, knowing that an evacuation order may occur at any time.
Chad, part of France’s African holdings until 1960, endured three decades of civil warfare as well as invasions by Libya before a semblance of peace was finally restored in 1990. The government eventually drafted a democratic constitution, and held flawed presidential elections in 1996 and 2001.
In 1998, a rebellion broke out in northern Chad, which sporadically flares up despite several peace agreements between the government and the rebels. In 2005 new rebel groups emerged in western Sudan and have made probing attacks into eastern Chad.
Power remains in the hands of an ethnic minority. In June 2005, President Idriss DEBY held a referendum successfully removing constitutional term limits. 
