Kousséri (from ar, قصور ''quṣūr'' meaning "palaces"), founded and known as Mser in the indigenous
Mser language is a city in
Far North Province, Cameroon. It is the capital of the
Logone-et-Chari department. 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
The Baggāra ( ar, البَقَّارَة "heifer herder") or Chadian Arabs are a nomadic confederation of people of mixed Arab and Arabized indigenous African ancestry, inhabiting a portion of the Sahel mainly between Lake Chad and the Nile riv ...
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 c ...
used as the lingua franca.
It forms a
transborder agglomeration
A transborder agglomeration is an urban agglomeration or conurbation that extends into multiple sovereign states and/or dependent territories. It includes city-states that agglomerate with their neighbouring countries.
List of transborder aggl ...
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 c ...
, capital of Chad, from which it is separated by the
Logone River 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, 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, and Adamawa to the south while it ...
. 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 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. 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 objec ...
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