Yahya Dello Djero was killed in an armed clash at his party headquarters in late February 2024 (social media sites)

Yahya Delo Djirou, a Chadian politician, born in 1974. He is the cousin of the transitional president, Mohamed Idriss Deby. He participated in his uncle Idriss Deby’s revolution against Hissene Habré between 1989 and 1990. He then became a founding member of an armed organization to overthrow him in 2005, but he returned to become a minister and an official. Samia in his government starting in 2008.

The relationship with Idriss Déby became tense again after Djiro criticized the First Lady in 2020, and after announcing his candidacy for the presidency in early 2021, he was harassed again and was forced to leave the country after surviving an attack on his home in which his son, his mother, and others were killed, but he returned after the killing of Idriss Déby in April. 2021.

In late February 2024, it was announced that he was killed in clashes at the headquarters of the Socialist Party that he headed, in an incident that his supporters consider a plan to remove him from the competition for the presidential position, while the government version says that he opened fire on the security forces that arrived to arrest him against the backdrop of accusing him of involvement in an attempt to assassinate the president. supreme court.

Birth and upbringing

Yahya Delo Djiro was born on December 18, 1974 AD in the city of Qawra, on the far northeastern border of the country and near the borders with Sudan and Libya.

He is the cousin of the head of the Transitional Military Council, Mohamed Idriss Deby, and belongs to the Zaghawa tribe, which has controlled power in Chad since President Idriss Deby Ethno seized power from his predecessor, Hissene Habré, in 1990.

Yahya Delo Djirou (centre) at a press conference in the capital, N'Djamena, in 2021 (French)

Study and training

Yahya Delo Djiro studied in Chad until he obtained a bachelor's degree in mathematics, then completed his education in the Canadian capital, Otara, and obtained a postgraduate degree in communications.

Years of rebellion

Djirou began his political and military experience early in his life, and was a supporter of Déby in 1990 by participating in the military rebellion he led against then-President Hissène Habré.

After his return from Canada, he joined the ruling party (the National Salvation Movement), but he was not satisfied with President Déby’s appreciation for him, so he began his opposition path by writing articles criticizing the regime’s policy. Then he became one of the founders of the Change, Unity and Democracy Base in 2005, which is an armed Chadian organization opposed to the president’s rule. Deby, which includes two of his nephews, the twins Timan and Tom Erdemi.

The establishment of this organization coincided with a constitutional amendment allowing Déby to run for a third presidential mission, and it received important memberships from some senior military leaders in the Chadian army and represented one of the strongest rebellious movements against the rule of Déby Sr.

Djiro assumed the responsibility of spokesman for Al-Qaeda for Change, but its leaders accused him of spying for Déby, so he was subjected to a prison sentence inside the Sudanese territory where the organization took refuge. He was then released, but he defected from the organization.

Jobs and responsibilities

Djiro left the Al-Qaeda for Change camps for Khartoum, and from there he headed to N'Djamena to begin a new phase of the relationship with President Idriss Deby after years of involvement in the armed opposition.

Between 2008 and 2018, he moved between a number of government jobs and was appointed as an advisor to the president, then he became his country’s ambassador to the Economic Community of Central African States until 2020.

The clash with the lady of the palace

In late 2020, the First Lady of Chad, Hinda Déby, filed a complaint with justice against Yahya Delo Djiro, accusing him of defamation after he published a video clip in which he spoke about corruption in the “Big Heart” Foundation that she runs.

As a result of these statements, Djiro was dismissed from his job as ambassador to the Economic Community of Central African States. He became an opponent of the regime and tried to establish a political party, but he faced administrative obstacles, so in 2021 he joined the opposition Socialist Party Without Borders.

As the date of the presidential elections scheduled for April of the same year approached, Djirou announced his intention to compete with the president nominated for a sixth term, Idriss Deby. His file related to defamation of the Lady of N'Djamena Palace was reopened and he was summoned to court.

In an attempt to arrest him at his home in late February 2021, a number of his family members were killed, including his mother and one of his sons, and others were injured, while he was able to leave the house and disappear from sight. Then he arrived in Belgium and remained outside the country until Deby was killed in battles with rebels about two months after this incident. .

Top competitors

After General Mohamed Idriss Deby assumed the presidency of the Transitional Military Council following the killing of his father, Djiro decided to return to the country and announced that he forgave the killers of his mother and son in the incident of February 27, 2021, but he expressed strong opposition to the new president and always criticized his policies.

In August 2021, the Socialist Party Without Borders held a conference at which Yahya Delo Djiro was elected to succeed the party’s founder, Dinamo Daram, as president, in the first incident of rotation of positions of its kind within political parties in Chad.

He also announced preparations to run in the presidential elections, and led a movement to unify the ranks of the opposition, which enabled him to establish what was known as the “Credible Opposition Union” in February 2023. He became seen as the most prominent opposition politician in Chad and represents a strong competitor to the President of the Transitional Council in the elections.

Tensions between Djirou and the head of the Transitional Military Council, Mohamed Idriss Deby, worsened after Djirou attracted the uncle of President Salih Déby, who joined the Socialist Party in January 2024.

Opposition party crisis

According to Djiro's supporters, attempts to prevent him from running in the presidential elections led the transitional president's government to sow disagreements within the Socialist Party Without Borders, and they said that it was behind the claims of its former president, Dinamo Daram.

The dispute between the two personalities reached the corridors of the judiciary, and the President of the Supreme Court, Samir Adam Nour, issued a decision that was considered biased towards the party’s founder, which exacerbated the crisis. On February 18, 2024, Daram announced Djiro’s dismissal from the party.

Following the storming of the Supreme Court building by gunmen on February 19, 2024, the N'Djamena authorities accused party member Ahmed Turabi of attempting to assassinate the president of the court, while the party says that the attack was planned and that the court was guarded and could not be attacked without a response.

According to the official Chadian version, Al-Turabi refused to surrender himself to justice and clashed with the security forces charged with his arrest, which led to his injury. Armed party supporters stormed the hospital and tried to free him, and after he was transferred to the building of the State Security Service, they also stormed it in a new operation in which the party’s leader, Yahya Delo Djiro, participated. Himself.

But the party denies this story and says that the police killed Al-Turabi and that some party members arrived to take his body, which was thrown in front of the security service building, but they were surprised to find that they were ambushed by the security forces.

The last "engagement".

On February 28, 2024, it was announced that Djirou and others were killed and the uncle of the interim president, Salah Déby, was arrested, following a security forces attack on the headquarters of the Socialist Party in the Klimat area of ​​the capital, N’Djamena.

While the government version says that Djiro was holed up in the party headquarters as a fugitive from justice, refusing to surrender, and shooting security forces with his supporters, the party’s version says that what happened was a planned assassination to get rid of Djiro as the first competitor to the transitional president in the May 2024 elections, and that An examination of his body shows that he was shot in the head at close range.

Source: websites