At least 42 people have been killed and several others wounded in eastern Chad following violent clashes between communities over access to water — a resource that has become increasingly scarce amid recurring droughts and environmental degradation across the Sahel region.
Local officials confirmed that the fighting erupted in Wadai Region, where herder and farming communities have been locked in a cycle of tension over shrinking water points. The violence quickly escalated, with both sides deploying weapons in what witnesses described as a pre-dawn attack on a lakeside settlement.
Security forces were deployed to the area, and a curfew has been imposed as authorities attempt to prevent further bloodshed. The Governor of Wadai Region called for calm and promised a full investigation into the incident.
Water-related violence is not new to Chad or the broader Lake Chad Basin region. As climate change intensifies — shortening rainy seasons, shrinking Lake Chad itself, and pushing herder communities further south in search of pasture — competition for water and grazing land has become a structural driver of conflict across central Africa.
The United Nations has previously warned that environmental stress is compounding existing ethnic and political tensions in the region, creating conditions ripe for intercommunal violence. The Lake Chad Basin Commission has been working on water-sharing frameworks, but implementation has been hampered by weak state presence in remote areas and competing development priorities.
Aid organisations operating in eastern Chad have expressed alarm at the growing frequency of such incidents. Several NGOs have called for emergency humanitarian corridors to be established in affected villages, where access to clean water has become a daily struggle even absent the violence.
Climate and Conflict Intertwined
Chad is among the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations. The country’s Sahel belt has seen decades of land degradation, desertification, and irregular rainfall. The shrinkage of Lake Chad — which has lost roughly 90% of its surface area since the 1960s — has displaced millions and intensified competition between farmers and pastoralists.
International observers are now urging the Chadian government to treat water security as a national security priority, warning that without structural interventions, resource-driven violence could become a permanent feature of life in the country’s eastern regions.