Kousséri (from ar, قصور ''quṣūr'' meaning "palaces"), founded and known as Mser in the indigenous

Mser language Mser (Msər), or Kousseri (Kuseri), is a moribund Afro-Asiatic language spoken in northern Cameroon and southwestern Chad. Dialects are Gawi, Houlouf, Kabe, Kalo, Mser (Kuseri). In Cameroon, Mser is spoken in Kousseri (Kousséri and Logone-Birn ...

is a city in

Far North Province The Far North Region, also known as the Extreme North Region (from french: Région de l'Extrême-Nord), is the northernmost constituent province of the Republic of Cameroon. It borders the North Region to the south, Chad to the east, and Nig ...

, Cameroon. It is the capital of the

Logone-et-Chari Logone-et-Chari is a department of Extreme-Nord Province in Cameroon. The department covers an area of 12,133 km and at the 2005 Census had a total population of 486,997. The capital of the department is at Kousséri. Most inhabitants of t ...

department Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

. It is a

market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village or city. In Britain, small rural ...

, and its population has recently been swollen by refugees from Chad. It had a population of 89,123 at the 2005 Census. The majority of the population are Shuwa Arabs with

Chadian Arabic Chadian Arabic ( ar, لهجة تشادية), also known as Shuwa Arabic, Baggara Arabic, Western Sudanic Arabic, or West Sudanic Arabic (WSA), is a variety of Arabic and the first language of 1.6 million people, both town dwellers and nomadic ca ...

used as the lingua franca. It forms a

transborder agglomeration A transborder agglomeration is an urban area, urban agglomeration or conurbation that extends into multiple sovereign states and/or dependent territory, dependent territories. It includes city-states that agglomerate with their neighbouring countr ...

with the city of

N'Djamena N'Djamena ( ) is the capital and largest city of Chad. It is also a special statute region, divided into 10 districts or ''arrondissements''. The city serves as the centre of economic activity in Chad. Meat, fish and cotton processing are the ...

, capital of Chad, from which it is separated by the

Logone River The Logon or Logone River is a major tributary of the Chari River. The Logone's sources are located in the western Central African Republic, northern Cameroon, and southern Chad. It has two major tributaries: the Pendé River (Eastern Logone) in ...

and the

Chari River The Chari River, or Shari River, is a long river, flowing in Central Africa. It is Lake Chad's main source of water. Geography The Chari River flows from the Central African Republic through Chad into Lake Chad, following the Cameroon border f ...

History

Kousséri was part of the

Bornu Empire Bornu may refer to: * Bornu Empire Bornu may refer to: * Bornu Empire, a historical state of West Africa * Borno State Borno State is a state in the North-East geopolitical zone of Nigeria, bordered by Yobe to the west, Gombe to the southwest ...

. In March 1846 Omar (son of Sheik Mohammed), nominal general of the Bornu sultan Ibrahim suffered a defeat at Kousséri.Helmolt, Hans F. (ed.) (1903) ''The history of the world; a survey of a man's record, Volume III: West Asia and Africa'' Dodd, Meade and Co., New York
p. 536
In 1900 the village was occupied by soldiers of Rabij az-Zubayr (Rabih), a Sudanese warlord. On 3 March it was taken by the combined forces of two French expeditions, one under Major Lamy from Algeria and the other under Lt.

Paul Joalland Paul-Jules Joalland (8 November 1870 – 27 September 1940) was a French officer, known mainly for completing the Voulet-Chanoine Mission. He was one of the six officers of the latter expedition, and was an artillery expert with the rank of l ...

from Senegal and local forces opposed to Rabih. Rabih was not in Kousseri at the time but established himself in a fort on the right bank of the Chari. Lamy did not think he had sufficient forces to attack Rabih immediately, but waited until the beginning of April when he was joined by a third expedition that was coming up the Chari under

Émile Gentil Émile Gentil (; 4 April 1866 – 30 March 1914) was a French colonial administrator, naval officer, and military leader. Born at Volmunster in the department of Moselle, he later attended the École Navale, the school that formed French nav ...

. When he arrived the combined forces crossed the Chari and attacked Rabih. The

battle of Kousséri The battle of Kousséri originated in French plans to occupy the Chari-Baguirmi region. In 1899–1900, the French organized three armed columns, one proceeding north from Congo, one east from Niger and another south from Algeria. The objecti ...

was a decisive battle which secured French rule over Chad.

Gallery

File:Fleuve chari, vu de Kousseri, qui se jette au lac Tchad.jpg, Chari river, from Kousseri File:Chari River (23265844792).jpg, Chari river, in Central Africa, separates N'Djamena, in Chad, from Kousseri in Cameroon File:Mototaxi.jpg, Trade on Logone river

Notes

References

*Porch, Douglas (1984) ''The Conquest of the Sahara'' Knopf, New York, French Equatorial Africa Cameroon–Chad border crossings Communes of Far North Region (Cameroon) {{Cameroon-geo-stub