Chadian President, Idriss Deby, has died of injuries suffered on frontline, the country’s army has said.
The 68-year-old leader died on Tuesday of injuries while fighting rebels in the north of the Sahel country.
Mr Deby won a sixth term, provisional election results showed, as the army said it had beaten back a column of fighters advancing on the capital, Ndjamena.
He came to power in a rebellion in 1990, took 79.3 percent of the vote in the April 11 election, the results showed on Monday.
Before his death, he was expected to give a victory speech to supporters but his campaign director, Mahamat Zen Bada, said he had instead gone to visit Chadian soldiers on the front lines.
“The candidate would have liked to have been here to celebrate … but right now, he is alongside our valiant defence and security forces to fight the terrorists threatening our territory,” Zen Bada told reporters.
The rebel group Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT), which is based across the northern frontier with Libya, attacked a border post on election day and then advanced hundreds of kilometres south.
