Chadian rebels opposed to President Idriss Deby withdrew on Saturday from an eastern town near the border with Sudan, just one day after briefly occupying it, humanitarian workers said, according to Reuters. Rebel fighters from a coalition aiming to end Deby's 16-year rule in the oil-producing central African state withdrew early on Saturday from the town of Guereda, 30 km (19 miles) from the border with Sudan's Darfur region, aid workers said. The rebels took their wounded from the hospital, overflowing with more than 80 government soldiers and rebel fighters from Friday's clashes, and headed into the arid scrubland in a convoy of pickup trucks, the workers said. The rebels have launched a series of raids and offensives in eastern Chad this year, often striking with mobile columns of pick-up trucks mounted with machine guns and rocket launchers.
