Guy, a 22-year-old student at Lycee Félix Eboue in the Chad capital, N’djamena, claims he was one of the few who managed to get away from a campaign of forced recruitment reportedly underway there.

“On Saturday [1 December] my friend and I decided to go to see a movie at the local outdoor cinema in Habena, our neighbourhood – an episode of 24 hours with Jack Bauer.

“About an hour into the movie people behind us suddenly started screaming. I looked behind and saw soldiers wearing turbans and carrying rifles coming down the aisle, pulling all the men out of their seats and taking them away. The movie was still running while everyone in the cinema was trying to escape.

“Luckily my friend and I were sitting in the fourth row from the front next to a high mud wall that runs around the cinema. We scaled the wall, jumped into someone’s private compound next door and ran out the gate and down the street.

“As I was running away I looked behind me and saw two army Toyota pickups and a big truck with soldiers forcing people inside. They were trying to wriggle away from the soldiers shouting ‘leave me alone’.

“Some were certainly teenagers. It’s mostly students and young people who go to the cinema in N’djamena.

“I know of four students from my school who disappeared that night. Nobody knows where they are. Of course we all think they were taken by the army to the war front.

“My parents will no longer let me out of the house after dark. But we heard the army has started raiding people’s private homes. Everyone in Habena is afraid.”