Fighting rages around palace in Chad's capital

Fighting raged for the second day on Sunday in the Chadian capital after rebels intent on toppling President Idriss Deby battled their way into the city and surrounded his palace and loyalist troops.

Spokesmen for the rebels, who denounce Deby as corrupt and dictatorial, said they allowed a pause in combat overnight to let foreigners evacuate from the oil producing central African country and to give Deby a chance to leave.

But foreign and local residents in the dusty capital said heavy weapons and machine gun fire erupted from before dawn near the palace -- defended by tanks and infantry -- not far from two hotels where several hundred foreigners were sheltered.

"The night was calm but the firing has started up again since about 5 o'clock," an employee at the Novotel hotel told Reuters.

Gabriel Stauring, of the humanitarian action group Stop Genocide Now, said he and other foreigners were at the Meridien hotel, protected by French troops and awaiting evacuation.

"There has been heavy weapons (fire) going in the Palace area. Helicopters have also been involved ... The word is that Deby is still in the palace and fighting back," he told Reuters in an email.

"There has been fighting very close to the hotel, with stray bullet flying over our heads again today."

France has soldiers and Mirage jets stationed in Chad but says it is remaining neutral in the conflict. It had evacuated around 400 foreigners from N'Djamena since late Saturday, French Defence Minister Herve Morin told French radio.

Authorities in northern Cameroon reported thousands of Chadians and foreign nationals had fled the fighting, crossing south over the river frontier by road.

Morin said he believed that Deby's armed forces chief of staff had died in the fighting when rebels moved into the capital in pickup trucks mounted with canon and machine guns. Morin did not name the official.