The Libyan mission failed, however, as French troops, normally stationed in Chad, shot down one of the planes with an American-made missile. The other returned to Libya. Seemingly undaunted, Qadhafi again bombed Chad, this time in the town of Abeche, some 400 miles east of the capital near the border with Sudan. A ceasefire ensued, sponsored by the Organization of African Unity, halting the hostilities. Because the Aozou Strip and surrounding area is little more than barren desert and rocks, there are few indigenous peoples.
Nomads exist, but settlements are few.
Any military raids generally affected military bases and military personnel. The greatest threat to civilian populations was the Libyan air raids with Chad itself, but those missions were failures, and ended without high casualties. It is known that the former Soviet Union supplied the Qadhafi regime with weapons. Other than that, the USSR was generally not deeply involved in the region, as it was in other parts of Africa. France, however, the colonial power of Chad, remained involved in Africa and generously supported Chad, both in terms of monetary aid and in the stationing of 1,300 troops in the country.