Chad’s President, Idriss Deby died of injuries sustained on the frontlines in the Sahel country’s north, where he had gone to see soldiers fighting insurgents, an army spokesman said on Tuesday.

Deby, 68, “has just breathed his last defending the sovereign nation on the battlefield” over the weekend, according to army spokesman General Azem Bermandoa Agouna in a statement read on state television.

According to the army, Deby was leading his army over the weekend as it fought rebels who conducted a massive incursion into the country’s north on election day.

The army said he would be replaced by a military council headed by the late president’s 37-year-old uncle, Mahamat Idriss Deby, a four-star general.

Following the unexpected death of the president, the army instituted a curfew and closed the country’s borders.

The shock announcement came a day after Deby, who came to power in an uprising in 1990, secured a sixth term, as per provisional results published on Monday. According to the results of the April 11 presidential election, Deby received 79.3 per cent of the vote.