Community radio reporter and family gunned down in targeted killing in Chad
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the shocking murder of a community radio reporter, together with his wife and young son, in a village Chad’s south-central Guéra region on 1 March and calls on the authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice and to protect journalists, especially in this region, where they are often the victims of attacks.
A journalist with Radio Communautaire de Mongo, Idriss Yaya was at home in Djondjol, a village 12 km from the town of Mangalmé, when nine people entered his house and one of them shot him, his wife and his four-year-old son, killing all three.
Yaya had been threatened and attacked in the past in connection with his coverage of the frequent conflicts between the region’s various ethnic groups, in which hundreds have been killed. Last week’s deadly attack came after he was named in the newspaper Le Référent’s Facebook page as the source of a report about the acquisition of illegal firearms by members of the Moubi ethnic group.
Guéra province governor Mahamat Togou said the police had established that Yaya was the victim of a premeditated murder by the nine people who entered his home. The nine intruders were reportedly arrested on 2 March and are being questioned with the aim of identifying which one fired the fatal shots.
The murder of journalist Idriss Yaya and his family is a cruel reminder of the terrible dangers that media professionals face in Chad’s southern and central regions, where inter-ethnic conflicts are rife. Journalists in these regions are often the targets of physical attacks. This time the worst happened. It is crucial that the investigation should quickly lead to the identification and prosecution of all those responsible for this appalling crime. We also call on the authorities to respond to this violence by protecting journalists working in these difficult regions.
Inter-communal tension and conflicts are common in Chad and, as in the rest of the Sahel region, where violence is growing, journalists are exposed to many dangers.
Alwihdainfo news site coordinator Malick Mahamat Tidjani was run down by men on a motorcycle and then beaten in the capital, N'Djamena, on 27 February. Djimet Wiche, who works for the same website and is also an AFP correspondent, lives in constant fear because he has been followed by unknown persons since the beginning of January.
