Chad army opens fire on wounded soldiers, one dead

N'DJAMENA, Jan 3 (Reuters) Chad's security forces opened fire on a demonstration by wounded soldiers demanding better medical care, killing at least one person, a government official in the central African country said today.

The wounded troops, injured in combat in Chad's eastern border region with Sudan's Darfur, blocked roads in front of a military hospital in the centre of the capital N'Djamena to demand compensation from the state.

''Troublemakers in the army, infiltrated by civilians claiming to be in need of medical evacuation, besieged the military hospital for days preventing it from operating,'' defence ministry chief of staff Blabague Marboulaye said.

''Measures were taken so it could resume work but they were unsuccessful. So as not to endanger the seriously ill, the authors of this disorder were then cleared away. Calm has returned,'' he told Reuters.

A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said one of the demonstrators had been killed and 15 arrested. A Reuters witness heard sustained gunfire late yesterday around the time the protest was put down.

President Idriss Deby is struggling to deal both with violence spilling over into Chad from Darfur and with home-grown rebels seeking to overthrow him. Analysts say maintaining loyalty in the army is key to his survival.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in ethnic and political violence in Darfur since 2003 and raiders on camels and horseback have made frequent incursions into eastern Chad, where aid workers are caring for some 200,000 Sudanese refugees.

Over the last year, several rebel groups bent on ending Deby's 16-year rule have also fought a low-intensity war in the desert, mountains and scrubland of eastern Chad, occasionally striking further west.

Deby has accused Sudan of backing and arming both the cross-border raiders and the Chadian rebels. Khartoum denies the charges.

REUTERS PB HT2055