Key Developments
President Mahamat Idriss Déby consolidated power in 2025 after winning the 2024 presidential election, which was criticized by the opposition for irregularities. Constitutional changes approved in 2025 extended presidential terms from five to seven years and removed term limits, effectively enabling Déby to remain in power indefinitely, subject to holding elections every seven years.
Political opposition operated in a restrained environment. Opposition leader Succès Masra, who contested the 2024 election, was arrested and later sentenced to 20 years in prison. Activists, party members, and journalists were subjected to intimidation and arrest.
An amnesty law, shielding perpetrators of abuses connected to the October 2022 protests from legal accountability, continued to close all debate on justice three years on.
Intercommunal violence in southern and eastern Chad persisted in 2025, especially between herders and sedentary farming communities, with dozens killed in several incidents. Displacement from these clashes, as well as from the conflict in neighboring Sudan, stressed humanitarian capacity. Refugee flows from Sudan into Chad continued. Chad was one of the hardest hit countries in the region from floods in late 2024 and early 2025, worsening food insecurity.
Reparations for victims of abuses under former President Hissène Habré made little progress in 2025 after partial payments began in 2024. Those 2024 payments were still far below court-ordered amounts.
Violence in the South and East
Despite authorities’ claims that steps have been taken to address the root causes of violent clashes between nomadic Fulani herders and local farmers, such as unclear land titles and livestock migration routes, this has been ineffective, as southern and eastern Chad saw a rise in such clashes in 2025.
In May, in the village of Mandakao in Logone-Occidental province clashes took place over grazing land and farming boundaries. The government reported that at least 41 people were killed and 6 wounded in the incident. Media reports indicate the dispute stemmed from contested land demarcation with farmers claiming herders encroached on their land and herders saying the lack of demarcation forced them into farmland.
In Oregomel, Mayo-Kebbi Ouest province, in the south, violence broke out in June when herder-farmer clashes escalated into attacks with machetes. At least 17 people were killed, including women and children, and several others were wounded. In Molou, Ouaddai province, in the east, inter-tribal clashes in mid-June left around 20 people dead and at least 16 injured.
The violence around Mandakao, Oregomel, and Molou reflects a broader pattern of rising farmer-herder clashes, exacerbated by population pressures, diminishing arable land, and climate stresses.
Political Space
On May 16, Succès Masra, the former prime minister and leader of the opposition party Les Transformateurs (The Transformers), was arrested in N’Djamena, the capital, over alleged links to the deadly intercommunal violence in Mandakao.
Masra was accused of inciting hate speech, xenophobia, and—through social media—being complicit in murder. He was tried along with dozens of others. Masra pled not guilty. On August 9, Masra was convicted and sentenced to 20-years imprisonment and a fine of 1 billion CFA francs (US$1.8 million). Masra’s co-defendants also received 20-year sentences on similar charges.
Masra’s politically motivated arrest and rushed trial has effectively neutralized the political opposition and silenced dissent. His arrest and conviction was also inconsistent with the October 2023 Kinshasa Accords, under which a 2022 arrest warrant for Masra was suspended, and he, his supporters, and his party, were guaranteed the right to return from exile and conduct political activity freely.
Constitutional Changes
In September 2025, Chad’s National Assembly overwhelmingly approved constitutional amendments that extend the presidential term from five to seven years and remove limits on the number of times the president can be re-elected, stripping away legal constraints that previously offered a nominal check on presidential tenure.
The vote, which was boycotted by much of the opposition, passed in the lower chamber with 171 votes in favor, one abstention, and none against.
These reforms passed both houses of parliament and were signed into law by the president in October.
The constitutional changes concentrate power in the hands of Déby and shift constitutional balances and legislative oversight, allowing for little debate or opposition.
Political Violence, Dissent, and Repression
Despite calls to investigate and identify those responsible for celebratory gunfire after Déby’s 2024 election victory, no meaningful inquiry or prosecutions were launched in 2025 and little compensation or redress was delivered to the victims. At least 11 people were killed and many more injured, including children, by stray bullets and rockets fired into homes by security forces in 2024.
The 2024 death of opposition leader Yaya Dillo during a security forces’ raid on his party’s headquarters before the presidential election was not investigated in 2025. In December 2024, Chadian authorities released 24 of Dillo’s relatives who had been arrested when he was killed and were detained at Koro Toro maximum prison. Ten of those who were held at Koro Toro had been acquitted in July 2024.
In June, Robert Gam, the head of Dillo’s party, the Parti socialiste sans frontières (Socialist Party Without Borders), was released after eight months in detention. He was never charged with an offense.
In September, the Ministry of Territorial Administration published a decree stripping Makaila Nguebla, a blogger who was a human rights advisor at the presidency during the transition, and the activist and journalist Charfadine Galmaye Saleh of their nationalities. The two men are in exile abroad.
In March, journalists Olivier Monodji and Mahamat Saleh Alhissein were arrested and charged with espionage, conspiracy, and endangering state security, allegedly for their connections or coverage involving the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary group present in Central Africa and the Sahel. Their prolonged detention without a trial violated international norms against arbitrary detention and on due process. They were released in July.
Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
Article 354 of the 2017 Penal Code prohibits “sexual relations with a person of one’s own sex.” Under the code, individuals convicted of same-sex relations face up to two years’ imprisonment and a fine of between 50,000 to 500,000 CFA francs (approximately US$75-750).