Forty soldiers were killed in an attack on a military base in the Lake Chad region on Sunday night, the presidency said in an official statement.

President Mohamed Idriss Deby travelled to the site of the attack on Monday morning and launched Operation Haskanit to hunt down the perpetrators, who were not identified in the statement, but Boko Haram often carries out similar attacks in the region.

Chad has long faced an insurgency in the west of the country near the border with Nigeria. In June, nine people were killed and more than 40 injured when a fire broke out at a military ammunition depot in the capital, N’Djamena.