JUST IN: Chad’s President is Dead

[File: Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images]

                                                                                                                      [Photo credit: Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images]

Chad’s newly re-elected president, Idriss Deby has passed on as a result of injuries suffered on the frontline where he had gone to visit soldiers battling rebels, an army spokesman said on Tuesday.

This comes a day after Deby won a sixth term, as per provisional election results released on Monday. The 68-year-old Deby, who came to power in a rebellion in 1990, took 79.3 percent of the vote in the April 11 election, the results showed. 

Deby, 68, “has just breathed his last defending the sovereign nation on the battlefield” over the weekend, army spokesman General Azem Bermandoa Agouna said in a statement read out on state television.

Deby postponed his victory speech to supporters and instead went to visit Chadian soldiers battling rebels, according to his campaign manager.

General Mahamat Kaka, the son of the deceased Chadian leader, has been named interim head of state, the army spokesman said.