N’DJAMENA — A man dressed in a woman’s burqa blew himself up in the main market in Chad’s capital N’Djamena early on Saturday, killing 15 people and injuring 80, a police spokesman said.
No group immediately claimed responsibility but Chad has blamed Boko Haram, the Islamist militant group based in neighbouring Nigeria, for a series of bombings and shootings in recent weeks. Chad has been at the forefront of a regional military campaign against the group.
Police spokesman Paul Manga said 16 people including the bomber had died. Separately, police sources reported a second explosion about 30 kilometres north of N’Djamena that killed one person.
A Reuters witness saw at least 10 bodies covered in blankets lying near the southern entrance to the market place next to overturned cartons and scattered vegetables. Security forces cordoned off the area to stop people entering and searched stalls for more explosives.
Several witnesses said the bomber had tried to enter the market wearing a woman’s burqa. Chad authorities banned the head-to-toe religious garment last month, citing the risk that attackers could use it as a disguise or hide explosives underneath.
“The suicide bomber was a man disguised as a woman (in a burqa). He tried to enter the market when he was intercepted by police,” Mr Manga said. “That is when he detonated the bomb.” Residents said the explosion happened at around 8.30am local time (7.30am GMT), during a busy period before the midday heat.
- Like
- Digg
- Del
- Tumblr
- VKontakte
- Buffer
- Love This
- Odnoklassniki
- Meneame
- Blogger
- Amazon
- Yahoo Mail
- Gmail
- AOL
- Newsvine
- HackerNews
- Evernote
- MySpace
- Mail.ru
- Viadeo
- Line
- Comments
- Yummly
- SMS
- Viber
- Telegram
- Subscribe
- Skype
- Facebook Messenger
- Kakao
- LiveJournal
- Yammer
- Edgar
- Fintel
- Mix
- Instapaper
- Copy Link
One Response
Everyone, tuck this story up your sleeves, and cite it when writing to politicians to demand bans upon the wearing of the burqa. THE BURQA is a security threat, a threat to public safety. It is all about disguise and hiding in order to facilitate aggression: it conceals the wearer’s identity from witnesses; it conceals the sex of the wearer, allowing men to pose as women for nefarious purposes (imagine the possibilities it affords for Muslim or non-Muslim pervert pedophiles to get into the female toilets and ogle little girls); and its loose folds readily conceal weapons of all kinds, and bombs and explosive vests or belts, in a way that, say, jeans and t-shirts or a normal shirt and western-style skirt or frock do not. Ban the burqa! No exceptions. No excuses. Ban it. Ban it in Australia, Canada, the UK, all across continental Europe, the Americas, India; ban it from being worn in public in *any* majority non-Muslim country, and enforce the ban. For that matter, ban the Muslim female slave-mask (the yashmak or NIQAB).