The ten member States of the Economic Community of Central African States -ECCAS- (Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, DRC, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and Sao Tome and Principe), plus a non-member State, Togo, carried out on 17 November 2007 a common military exercise in Chad. The exercise code-named "Bahr el-Gazel 2005" took place in the Chadian town of Moussoro, located at approximately 250 Km away from the capital N’djamena and rassembled a light brigade of 1,600 troops made of companies from the ten ECCAS members States.

The exercise was undertaken in presence of presidents Denis Sassou Nguesso from Congo, François Bozize from the CAR, Omar Bongo Ondimba from Gabon and Joseph Kabila president of the DRC and Head of the ECCAS. According to the organization Committee, this exercise was expected to be an inter-army multilateral peacekeeping simulation which envisioned to be an occasion for exchanging experiences on peacekeeping techniques, as well as an instrument of regional defence aims at preventing and resolving peacefully conflicts in Africa.

Source: Afriquecentrale.info