JUNE 16 (Reuters) — Hospitals across Chad’s capital struggled to treat 100 people injured in dual attacks on Monday (June 15).
At least 27 people were killed, including four suspected Boko Haram Islamist fighters.
At the Liberte hospital, the closest to the scene of the blast, some injured people could only be treated on the blood-covered floor as space had run out.
Many of the injured were believed to have been at the police training school, which was targeted along with the police headquarters.
“We heard a big noise and immediately dust came in through the windows. The three of us left the office and came back in to see all the dust coming in the windows and we saw bodies and injured people on the ground. We looked at the time and it was exactly 9:05. Then people started coming from everywhere. There were five or six people dead and too many injured to count. I don’t know the total number of people who died,” said Yerima, who was working in a nearby office at the time of the blast.
The attacks, which included at least one suicide bomb, are the first of their kind in Chad, an oil-producing nation and a major western ally which has spearheaded offensives on al Qaeda-linked groups in Mali and on Boko Haram in neighbouring Nigeria.
Chad’s government blames the attack on Boko Haram and said it has formed a special commission to investigate the incident.
Chad has lost dozens of soldiers fighting in northern Mali and in northern Nigeria.
The first known attack by Boko Haram on Chadian soil took place in February on the shores of Lake Chad and has been followed by a handful of other isolated incidents.
However, despite threats by Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau to strike at Chad in retaliation for its leading role in a regional offensive against the group, N’Djamena had escaped attack so far.
The riverside city on Cameroon’s border is the headquarters for a regional taskforce grouping troops from Nigeria, Chad, Niger, Cameroon and Benin to fight Boko Haram.
It also hosts Barkhane, a 3,000-strong French mission set up to fight terrorism across the Sahel-Sahara territorial band.
