The Republic of Chad is a landlocked country in Central Africa with its capital at N'Djamena. In 1900, France created a protectorate in Chad, followed by its formal annexation into French Equatorial Africa in 1920. Chad was given its independence on 11 August 1960 under Francois Tomalbaye, a member of the country's sizeable Christian minority. In 1965, the Chadian Civil War broke out due to discrimination against the Muslims of the north, and the rebels conquered the capital in 1979 and put an end to the south's hegemony. In 1990, the brutal Chadian dictator Hissene Habre was overthrown by General Idriss Deby, who became the new autocrat in Chad. Chad remains plagued by political violence, several attempted coups, high corruption, high poverty, and the overpopulation caused by the Sudanese refugee crisis (the result of the Darfur War). In 2015, the country had a population of 13,670,084 people, with 55% being Muslim, 40% Christian, and 5% other.
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