Soldiers and rebels have both claimed to have killed several hundred of their opponents in combat yesterday in eastern Chad in what may turn out to be the heaviest fighting since rebels tried to take the capital N’Djamena last year.

Authorities in Chad said today they were holding seven crew members of a plane contracted to fly more than 100 children out of the impoverished African country, as President Idriss Deby called an attempt by nine French citizens to take the children away to Europe “shocking” and promised punishment for anyone found to have been involved.

Soldiers have gathered along a strategic road in trucks mounted with machine guns as a rebel convoy was spotted heading towards the capital of Chad.

A United Nations aid worker was shot and wounded in eastern Chad after being pulled from her car in a volatile region near the Sudanese border, the agency said today.

CHAD’S president has reversed earlier threats by officials to forcibly return Sudanese refugees to their country’s volatile Darfur region after allegations that Chadian rebels have recruited fighters from the camps, the UN refugee chief said yesterday.

Sudan is willing to hold talks with neighbouring Chad to restore diplomatic relations, a leading member of the Sudanese ruling party said on Saturday.

Thousands rallied in Chad’s capital N’Djamena yesterday in support of the president following a defeated rebel attack, while the oil minister threatened to shut down the country’s oil pipeline unless the government is compensated for frozen oil revenues.

Chad's president has broken off relations with Sudan and threatened to expel 200,000 refugees from the neighbouring Darfur region after parading more than 250 captured rebels through the streets of the capital following a violent attempt to overthrow him.