At least 38 people have died and 51 were injured after two groups of suicide bombers targeted a busy market and a refugee camp in Chad on Saturday in what appeared to be coordinated attacks, officials said.
Authorities suspect the extremist Boko Haram group from neighbouring Nigeria staged the attacks in the western village of Baga Sola, said military spokesman Col Azem Agouna Bermandoua.
A group of female suicide bombers hit the market in Baga Sola when it was at its busiest, killing at least 16 people, said director general of Chad’s gendarmerie, Gen Banyaman Cossingar. A second group of suicide bombers killed at least 22 people at the nearby refugee camp, he said.
For months, Baga Sola has been home to thousands of people who already had fled Boko Haram attacks in Nigeria. The village is in the Lake Chad region near the border with Nigeria.
While Boko Haram has attacked Chad’s capital before, Saturday’s bombings appear to be the largest and most elaborate staged yet in the country’s lake region.
The extremists have stepped up attacks in Nigeria and neighbouring countries, including Niger, Cameroon and Chad, since Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari took office in May pledging to halt the 6-year-old uprising that Amnesty International says has killed 20,000 people.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/10/suicide-bombers-attack-refugee-camp-market-chad-boko-haram
