Orbán pushes for Hungarian military presence in Chad

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán plans to press ahead with his plan to station soldiers in Chad.

Orbán spoke of the plan on Monday after a meeting with the president of the African country, Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, in Budapest.

The country plays a key role in the campaign against migration from the Sahel region towards Europe, Orbán wrote on Facebook. For this reason, a "complex package for the implementation of cooperation" has now been agreed with its president, he wrote.

Orbán has signed two decrees, which appeared in the Hungarian Law Gazette on Monday, during the talks with Déby. They state that there is a bilateral agreement on the topic of defence.

Details are still to be worked out and submitted to the Hungarian parliament. Déby did not initially comment on this in Budapest. The talks are to continue on Tuesday.

Chad, home to some 19 million people, lies at an important crossroads between the crisis-stricken states of Sudan, Libya, Niger and the Central African Republic.

It has also been a important Western ally in a volatile part of the world.

The oil-rich country, whose population is among the poorest in the world, is home to more than one million refugees.

Since 2020, seven countries in Africa have experienced successful military coups, almost all of them in Francophone West and Central Africa.

According to media reports, France, the former colonial power, is planning to reduce its military presence in Chad, where it currently has around 1,000 troops, amid rising anti-French sentiment in the region.

Despite this, Paris still views President Déby as a key ally, even in the face of a controversial election and ongoing human rights concerns.

Hungary's parliament approved the deployment of 200 Hungarian soldiers to Chad last autumn but this has yet to be implemented.

The fight against migration from Africa and the Middle East to Hungary is one of Orbán's most important goals. The European Court of Justice sentenced Hungary to pay high fines this summer due to its restrictive asylum policy.