The Chad–Libya border is 1,050 km (652 mi) in length and runs from the

tripoint A triple border, tripoint, trijunction, triple point, or tri-border area is a geography, geographical point at which the boundaries of three countries or Administrative division, subnational entities meet. There are 175 international tripoints ...

with

Niger Niger, officially the Republic of the Niger, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is a unitary state Geography of Niger#Political geography, bordered by Libya to the Libya–Niger border, north-east, Chad to the Chad–Niger border, east ...

in the west, to the tripoint with

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

in the east.

Description

The border consists of two straight line segments. The first is a continuation of the Libya–Niger border; this section continues from the tripoint in a straight line for about 113 km (70 mi) up to the

Tropic of Cancer The Tropic of Cancer, also known as the Northern Tropic, is the Earth's northernmost circle of latitude where the Sun can be seen directly overhead. This occurs on the June solstice, when the Northern Hemisphere is tilted toward the Sun ...

. The border then turns to the southeast, running for 942 km (586 mi) to the tripoint with Sudan. The border lies wholly within the

Sahara Desert The Sahara (, ) is a desert spanning across North Africa. With an area of , it is the largest hot desert in the world and the list of deserts by area, third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Ar ...

, cutting through parts of the

Tibesti Mountains The Tibesti Mountains are a mountain range in the central Sahara, primarily located in the extreme north of Chad, with a small portion located in southern Libya. The highest peak in the range, Emi Koussi, lies to the south at a height of and i ...

in the far west. The remote

Bikku Bitti Bikku Bitti, also known as Bette Peak, is the highest mountain in Libya Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya borde ...

mountain is located very close to the border on the Libyan side.

History

The

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

had ruled the coastal areas of what is today Libya since the 16th century, organised into the Vilayet of Tripolitania, with an ill-defined border in the south. The modern border with what is now Chad first emerged during the

Scramble for Africa The Scramble for Africa was the invasion, conquest, and colonialism, colonisation of most of Africa by seven Western European powers driven by the Second Industrial Revolution during the late 19th century and early 20th century in the era of ...

, a period of intense competition among European powers in the later 19th century for territory and influence in Africa. The process culminated in the

Berlin Conference The Berlin Conference of 1884–1885 was a meeting of colonial powers that concluded with the signing of the General Act of Berlin,

of 1884, in which the European nations concerned agreed upon their respective territorial claims and the rules of engagements. As a result of this,

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

gained control of the upper valley of the

Niger River The Niger River ( ; ) is the main river of West Africa, extending about . Its drainage basin is in area. Its source is in the Guinea Highlands in south-eastern Guinea near the Sierra Leone border. It runs in a crescent shape through Mali, Nige ...

(roughly equivalent to the areas of modern

Mali Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is the List of African countries by area, eighth-largest country in Africa, with an area of over . The country is bordered to the north by Algeria, to the east b ...

and Niger), and also the lands explored by Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza for France in Central Africa (roughly equivalent to modern

Gabon Gabon ( ; ), officially the Gabonese Republic (), is a country on the Atlantic coast of Central Africa, on the equator, bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, the Republic of the Congo to the east and south, and ...

and

Congo-Brazzaville The Republic of the Congo, also known as Congo-Brazzaville, the Congo Republic or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo), is a country located on the western coast of Central ...

). From these bases the French explored further into the interior, eventually linking the two areas following expeditions in April 1900 which met at Kousséri in the far north of modern

Cameroon Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the R ...

. These newly conquered regions were initially ruled as military territories, with the two areas later organised into the federal colonies of

French West Africa French West Africa (, ) was a federation of eight French colonial empires#Second French colonial empire, French colonial territories in West Africa: Colonial Mauritania, Mauritania, French Senegal, Senegal, French Sudan (now Mali), French Guin ...

(''Afrique occidentale française'', abbreviated AOF) and

French Equatorial Africa French Equatorial Africa (, or AEF) was a federation of French colonial territories in Equatorial Africa which consisted of Gabon, French Congo, Ubangi-Shari, and Chad. It existed from 1910 to 1958 and its administration was based in Brazzav ...

(''Afrique équatoriale française'', AEF).

British-French Agreement of 1899

Britain Britain most often refers to: * Great Britain, a large island comprising the countries of England, Scotland and Wales * The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a sovereign state in Europe comprising Great Britain and the north-eas ...

and France had agreed between them on 21 March 1899 that east of the Niger River, French influence would extend no further north than that of a diagonal line running from the intersection of the

and the 16th meridian east to the 24th meridian east, thus creating the long line section of the modern Chad–Libya border. The Ottomans protested this treaty and began moving troops into the southern regions of the Vilayet of Tripolitania.

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

meanwhile sought to emulate the colonial expansion of the other European powers, and they indicated their recognition of the above line to France on 1 November 1902. In September 1911 Italy invaded the Tripolitania, and the Treaty of Ouchy was signed the following year by which the Ottomans formally ceded sovereignty of the area over to Italy. The Italians organised the newly conquered regions into the colonies of Italian Cyrenaica and Italian Tripolitania and gradually began pushing further south. In 1934 they united the two territories into

Italian Libya Libya (; ) was a colony of Fascist Italy (1922–1943), Italy located in North Africa, in what is now modern Libya, between 1934 and 1943. It was formed from the unification of the colonies of Italian Cyrenaica, Cyrenaica and Italian Tripolitan ...

. Meanwhile, Britain and France had settled the border between AEF and

Anglo-Egyptian Sudan Anglo-Egyptian Sudan ( ') was a condominium (international law), condominium of the United Kingdom and Kingdom of Egypt, Egypt between 1899 and 1956, corresponding mostly to the territory of present-day South Sudan and Sudan. Legally, sovereig ...

(modern Sudan) in 1923–24, thus creating the modern Chad-Sudan border. In 1934 Britain and Italy confirmed the border between Italian Libya and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, by which Britain ceded the Sarra Triangle to Italy, extending Libyan territory to the southwest and thereby creating the modern Libya-Sudan border and much of the modern Chad–Libya border.

Aouzou Strip

On 18 March 1931 France transferred the

from Niger (AOF) to Chad (AEF), thus completing what is now the Chad–Libya border. On 7 January 1935 France and Italy signed a treaty which shifted the boundary southwards; the area between the two boundaries became known as the

Aouzou Strip The Aouzou Strip (; , ) is a strip of land in northern Chad that lies along the Chad–Libya border, border with Libya, extending south to a depth of about 100 kilometers into Chad's Borkou, Ennedi Ouest, Ennedi Est, and Tibesti regions for an a ...

, however this agreement was never formally ratified by both parties.Hodder, Lloyd, McLachlan (1998). ''Land-locked states of Africa and Asia, Volume 2''
p. 32
Frank Cass, London, Great Britain. During the

North African Campaign The North African campaign of World War II took place in North Africa from 10 June 1940 to 13 May 1943, fought between the Allies and the Axis Powers. It included campaigns in the Libyan and Egyptian deserts (Western Desert campaign, Desert Wa ...

of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

Italy was defeated and its African colonies were occupied by the Allied powers, with Libya split into British and French zones of occupation. Libya was later granted full independence on 2 December 1951. A Franco-Libyan treaty was signed on 1 August 1955 which recognised the existing boundary and confirmed French ownership of the Aouzou Strip. Chad later gained independence from France on 11 August 1960 and the border became an international frontier between two independent states.

Libyan Border

In 1969

Muammar Gaddafi Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi (20 October 2011) was a Libyan military officer, revolutionary, politician and political theorist who ruled Libya from 1969 until Killing of Muammar Gaddafi, his assassination by Libyan Anti-Gaddafi ...

seized power in Libya and reignited the Libyan claim to the Aouzou Strip, bolstered by the possibility that the area could be rich in

uranium Uranium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Ura ...

. Gaddafi also began interfering in Chadian affairs, actively supporting FROLINAT anti-government forces in the first Chadian Civil War and moving troops into northern Chad. As relations between the two states deteriorated, various secret discussions were held; Gaddafi claimed that as part of these Chadian President François Tombalbaye had ceded the Strip to Libya in 1972, however the claimed cession was disputed and the precise details remain unclear. In 1975 Chadian President Goukouni Oueddei publicly denounced Libya's presence in the Strip. There followed the Chadian-Libyan conflict, which lasted until 1987, whereupon the two countries agreed to resolved the border dispute peacefully. In 1990 the Aouzou case was referred to the

International Court of Justice The International Court of Justice (ICJ; , CIJ), or colloquially the World Court, is the only international court that Adjudication, adjudicates general disputes between nations, and gives advisory opinions on International law, internation ...

, which ruled in 1994 that the Strip belonged to Chad. Since then the situation on this remote border quietened considerably. However, in recent years the border has been the focus of renewed attention due to the ongoing instability in Libya since the overthrow of Gaddafi in 2011, the rise in the numbers of refugees and migrants crossing the Sahara, and also the discovery of gold in north-west Chad in the late 2000s-early 2010s which prompted an uncontrolled gold rush. In March 2019 Chadian President

Idriss Déby Idriss Déby Itno ( '; 18 June 1952 – 20 April 2021) was a Chadian politician and military officer who was the sixth List of heads of state of Chad, president of Chad from 1991 until his death in 2021 during the 2021 Northern Chad offensive, No ...

announced that the border would close, citing the crossing of the frontier by Libyan-based anti-government rebel groups into Chadian territory (most notably the Military Command Council for the Salvation of the Republic; French: ''Conseil de commandement militaire pour le salut de la République'', abbreviated CCMSR) and the continuing instability caused by the civil war in Libya. As part of Operation Barkhane France has provided assistance to the Chadian Army with guarding the border, including launching air strikes against anti-government rebels.

References