The Chadian President came to Budapest, they signed some agreements, they spoke about common interests and migration pressure, but what the essence, the purpose or the meaning of the unprecedented Hungarian military mission is, still nothing is known in the world.

In early September, Chadian President Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno spent a few days in Budapest, as he stopped on his way home from China to meet state leaders in the Hungarian capital. Members of the African delegation met with Minister of Agriculture István Nagy, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Defence Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Several bilateral agreements were signed, including an aid programme provided to Chad in the form of launching a fixed loan worth €150-200 million. This amount of money will be spent on Hungarian companies working on strengthening Chad's agriculture and food industry, developing water supply or digitalising education. Hungary Helps, the government-sponsored foreign aid organisation of Hungary, is also launching a health aid programme of USD 1 million. 

However, the picture has not become any clearer regarding one of the most controversial government plans in recent times, the military mission in Chad consisting of 200 Hungarian soldiers. 

A new government resolution was drafted on this matter, which was published in the Hungarian Gazette on the evening of 9 September. The resolution does not concern directly the Hungarian-Chadian bilateral defence agreement and the stationing of the Hungarian military contingent in Chad, but it does postpone the date of the finalisation of the agreements’ texts. In other words, an agreement has now been reached, the final form of which will be established later and only then it will be submitted to Parliament. 

Signatures have been obtained from both sides, but nothing more is known about the details of the mission or about its main purpose. 

The Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (R) and Chads President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno during a welcoming ceremony at St Gyorgy square in Budapest, Hungary,, September 9, 2024
The Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (R) and Chads President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno during a welcoming ceremony at St Gyorgy square in Budapest, Hungary,, September 9, 2024 Vivien Cher Benko/AFP/East News

How the special Hungarian-Chadian relationship evolved in just one year is explained in more detail in this article, but it is worth pointing out that the government had allocated a significant amount of money for the Chadian presence before any official decision was taken. 

Common features, common goals? 

Obviously, there are speculations about the Hungarian motivation behind being this active in Chad. First of all, some domestic economic interests arise as possible motivations, then there is also the promotion of the career of Gáspár Orbán - the Prime Minister's son - who is apparently playing a key role in the mission. The development of better relations with the French, and even supporting the Russians, who are also strongly present in Africa, might also be underlying reasons behind Hungary’s increased activity in Chad. More information is hard to obtain even if one looks for local sources. This is less surprising, given that the Chadian President is running a repressive regime. 

The secrecy from the Chadian partner is somewhat understandable, whereas the situation is different in Hungary. The Hungarian government is indeed planning an extraordinary mission which is not only dividing society, but also, according to sources, lacks unanimous support for the question of involvement even within the armed forces. 

The Hungarian government, with Péter Szijjártó at the helm, has tried to justify the plans by emphasising the common features of the two countries.  

"We are talking about two countries that are very careful to maintain their sovereignty, two countries that are clearly committed to peace. Two countries that clearly believe that war conflicts can and must be resolved not by arms but by negotiations" - Szijjártó said. 

The justification of the Chadian-Hungarian friendship did not stop there: "These are two countries where war conflicts have caused very serious challenges in recent years, two countries that reject any step in international politics that would risk escalating the war conflicts currently taking place" - the Hungarian diplomatic chief continued. 

Until now, perhaps not many people discovered all these similarities between Hungary, which is supposed to be a democratic country, and the African state, which is socially and politically very different. According to the Hungarian government, the main common challenge and interest is migration and its proper management, which is why a military presence is - also - needed in Chad. This was confirmed by the minister most involved in the mission, Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky, Minister of Defence of Hungary, who argued that Hungary's security begins in the Sahel region. 

"Migration from the south is one of the biggest security threats facing Europe today. One of its root causes is terrorism, against which Hungary and Chad intend to fight together, as confirmed by the strategic partnership agreement signed on Monday" - the Defence Minister said. He claims that Chad is one of the last stable states in the Sahel region, where the Hungarian government is supporting economic recovery and effective action against terrorism, in addition to addressing the humanitarian crisis caused by the large number of refugees fleeing the armed conflict in neighbouring Sudan. 

Is migration the real cause of the cooperation? 

The alleged reason behind the cooperation with Chad, including the deployment of Hungarian troops, is migration happening in Africa. This reasoning not only reinforces concerns about the effectiveness of the mission, but also raises suspicions that the government may have underlying objectives beneath its communicated plans. The Hungarian soldiers cannot really contribute to the fight against either migration or terrorism - the Neue Zürcher Zeitung wrote earlier. 

"Of the hundreds of thousands of Sudanese war refugees who have fled to neighbouring Chad, very few want to travel to Europe, or simply have the means to do so. Since the beginning of 2023, fewer than 6,000 Sudanese have travelled to Italy via the central part of the Mediterranean Sea." 

Niger and Mali are more important transit countries for refugees than Chad is. Moreover, Hungary has little experience in Africa and has no historical links with Chad, unlike, for example, the French, who are still present but fewer in number. France has begun to reduce its presence in Africa in recent years, therefore its military presence in Chad, that was 3,500 at its peak and is 1,000 at present, could soon be reduced to 300. 

It is quite difficult to see how a Hungarian mission of 200 soldiers could manage migration, given the large size of the country, almost 1.3 million square kilometres. The total number of migrants and refugees is 1.1 million, out of them 600,000 are refugees, the rest being returning Chadians or internally displaced persons. Most of the refugees are in the east, along the 1,400 km border with Sudan, where dozens of large camps are operating - said Zoltán Szenes, retired general, Professor Emeritus of the Department of International Security Studies at the Ludovika University of Public Service, Faculty of Military Science and Officer Training, to Economx. The Hungarian troops would be based 1,000 kilometres away at the N'Djamena airbase, where French forces are also stationed. 

A man casts his ballot at a polling station at the school in the Abena district, Bureau 2 Carr 27, in NDjamena on May 6, 2024 during Chads presidential election.
A man casts his ballot at a polling station at the school in the Abena district, Bureau 2 Carr 27, in NDjamena on May 6, 2024 during Chads presidential election. Joris Bolomey/AFP/East News

The "anti-terrorism and migration control" objectives of the Hungarian government's mission in Chad are also seen as a pretext by a Central European government official responsible for security policy. 

"We have heard that the Hungarian government also wants to set up a military intelligence centre in Chad, which worries us. Since the death of Prigozhin and the break-up of the Wagner group, Russia has lost some influence in Africa. We therefore fear that this Hungarian military intelligence centre could potentially serve Russian interests, and I suspect that Kremlin officials such as Sergei Lavrov have encouraged the Hungarians in their endeavour" - he told VSquare on condition of anonymity. 

Western analysts are also suspicious of all this, given that the government is planning to get involved without the authorization of NATO, the EU and the UN. 

What can 200 soldiers do? 

To use the adjective ‘extraordinary’ in relation to the mission is absolutely adequate. Although Hungarian soldiers regularly participate in missions abroad, they have always done so in coalitions. Thus, the costs, the tasks, the organisation and, of course, to some extent the risk of the mission were shared among the participant countries. Now Hungarian soldiers will go on a mission on the basis of a bilateral agreement, which is a very unusual case. According to the government, the relationship was initiated by the President of Chad in a letter written on 19 September last year, but the content of the letter is unknown to the public. This situation, which is completely new for the Hungarian Defence Forces, also means that the full cost of the mission is borne by the Hungarian state and all tasks have to be organised by the Hungarians. 

The big question is where the money will come from, as the budget is staggering and the coffers are empty. Another question is what would happen if Hungarian soldiers got into trouble on the ground. Who is going to help them when the French are also pulling out. 

It is also unclear how (if at all) the Hungarian soldiers will operate with or alongside the French. The French have a shared history with Chad, they have local knowledge and contacts. The Hungarians have nothing: they have no knowledge of the place, they are not familiar with the local conditions, the social structure or the mentality of the Chadians. 

200 people are not enough to carry out any operation, nor to handle their own logistics. As in Iraq, when Hungarian soldiers were operating under the wing of the Americans, such a small number of soldiers can only be used for training purposes - said Csaba Török, a former French foreign legionnaire, in a podcast on Partizán. 

How different the Sahel region is from European countries is shown by the fact that, according to Török, the aim in these countries is not nation-building, but possession, possession of not only land, but also people. They have a different concept of society, a different attitude to family and private property. What Western leaders expect from them has nothing to do with reality, according to Török. 

Instead of stability, Chad is characterised by instability. One of the reasons for this is its vast territory, while the population is relatively small without a dominant or state-forming ethnic group - Telex quoted György Suha, former Ministerial Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, who also acted as travelling ambassador to Chad in 2018. 

The country of 17 million people is one of the poorest and most underdeveloped in the world, with almost 200 ethnic groups living in its territory. The sparsely populated desert in the north is inhabited by nomadic Toubou, the south by the Saras, the largest ethnic group with a third of the population, but there is also a significant ratio of Teda, Hamita, Hausa, Maba and Mimi people in Chad. There are many conflicts between the different ethnic groups, some of them religious. 

Glasses and sewing machines 

Hungary Helps has been trying to help Chadian locals and refugees for some time with various programmes. This spring they opened their humanitarian and development centre in N'Djamena. Ministerial Commissioner László Eduárd Máthé, who is working on the ground, regularly documents the progress on his social media page. Most recently, he reported that following the eye tests carried out by Hungary Helps a few weeks earlier, local professionals trained by the Hungarian team made glasses for the people in need. 

On 18 June, the local office of Hungary Helps, accompanied by Hungarian Embassy officials, delivered 35 boxes of medicines and other medical supplies to Chad's largest hospital. At the beginning of the summer, Hungary donated sewing machines to Chad, while 20 Chadians and 20 refugees were trained to use them through the Hungary Helps local office. At the end of the training period, they all received sewing machines to start their own businesses. 

TEFI

This article was written in the framework of The Eastern Frontier Initiative (TEFI) project. TEFI is a collaboration of independent publishers from Central and Eastern Europe, to foster common thinking and cooperation on European security issues in the region. The project aims to promote knowledge sharing in the European press and contribute to a more resilient European democracy.

Members of the consortium are 444 (Hungary), Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland), SME (Slovakia), PressOne (Romania), and Bellingcat (The Netherlands).

The TEFI project is co-financed by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.