N'DJAMENA, Feb 24, 2023 (BSS/AFP) - A total of 128 people died in the violent repression of opposition protests in Chad last year, the country's human rights commission (CNDH) said Thursday, decrying "human rights violations".

Opposition groups called the demonstrations, in the capital N'Djamena and other towns, last October to mark the date when the ruling military had initially promised to hand over power -- a timeline now extended for another two years by General Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno.

He took power after his father, president Idriss Deby Itno, who ruled for 30 years, died during an operation against rebels in April 2021.

The Chadian authorities had initially put the death toll in the capital at around 50, before updating that figure to 73 deaths.

NGOs have denounced the bloody suppression of the protests.

"The official figures... differ from those obtained after the investigations," the CNDH said in its new report, highlighting events in several towns, notably N'Djamena, Moundou, Doba, Koumra and Sarh.

According to the investigators, 943 people were arrested, 435 detained, and 12 have not been accounted for.

The CNDH "attributes the main responsibility for all these human rights violations to agents invested with state authority, namely the FDS (security forces), who clearly failed in their tasks in the chain of events," the report noted.

The CNDH, created in 2019, is responsible for the protection and promotion of human rights and provides opinions to the Chadian government, president and national assembly.