CHAD’S president has ordered his country’s military to retaliate against any future attacks from Sudan, it was reported on Thursday.

This comes after at least 17 people were killed and several others injured while attending a funeral in the border town of Tine.

President Idris Mahamat Deby called an emergency meeting of his security cabinet on Wednesday, where he placed the military on maximum alert.

President Deby also ordered the “total closure” of the border with Sudan.

The president described the attack on Tine as “outrageous and a blatant aggression” and a breach of Chad’s territorial integrity.

He said the attack had taken place despite warnings to the two sides fighting each other in Sudan and a previous closure of the border.

Residents of Tine said the victims of Wednesday’s attack were mourners, with one quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying they had gathered at a house for a funeral ceremony that involved reading the Koran.

A Chad government spokesman said his country had now “strengthened the posture of its defence and security forces” and was ready to pursue its rights inside Sudanese territory “in strict compliance with the rules of international law.”

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which controls most of the western Darfur region bordering Chad, is suspected of carrying out the attack.

The RSF denies any involvement and blames Sudan’s army, which, in turn, has blamed the RSF.

The Sudanese government has often accused Chad of supporting the RSF with weapons and mercenaries, claims which N’Djamena denies.

Fighting between the Egypt and Saudi Arabia-backed Sudanese military and the United Arab Emirates-supported RSF broke out in April 2023.

The fighting has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced more than 13 million, nearly one million of them to Chad, according to the United Nations.