36 killed in suicide bombings in Chad

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Sunday 11 Oct 2015 - 11:31 Makkah mean time-28-12-1436 (Image from Reuters) Baga Sola, Chad (IINA) - At least five suicide bombers on Saturday targeted a village in Chad where there are thousands of Nigerian refugees who have fled extremist groups' violence. According to officials, the bombs killed at least 36 people and wounded about 50 others in what appeared to be a coordinated attack, The Guardian reported. Authorities blamed the extremist Boko Haram group for staging the attacks in the western village of Baga Sola, according to a communiqué from government spokesman Hassan Bakari. It said 41 people had died, including the five suicide bombers who were identified as two women, two children and a man. According to the Director General of Chad's gendarmerie Banyaman Cossingar, the female suicide bombers hit the market in Baga Sola when it was at its busiest, killing at least 16 people while a second group of suicide bombers killed at least 22 people at a nearby refugee camp. Cossingar gave a preliminary toll before the government released an official count. There were conflicting reports on the number of wounded. The government’s official count was 48, while UNICEF said at least 53 people were wounded, including 14 children. Police spokesman Paul Manka said the attackers staged five bombings, adding that two were near the refugee camp but not in it. “There were three explosions at the Baga Sola market and two explosions near the Dar-es-Salam refugee camp. From our information, the explosion was not in the refugee camp, but in a part of the village nearby”, Manka said. For months, Baga Sola has been home to thousands of people who already had fled deadly Boko Haram attacks in Nigeria. The UN says the Dar-es-Salam camp now has just over 3,000 refugees, and can house up to 15,000. The village is in the Lake Chad region near the border with Nigeria, where Boko Haram first launched its insurgency six years ago. Amnesty International says the uprising has killed 20,000 people. 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. Chad has become a major military ally of Nigeria in the fight against Boko Haram. It is noteworthy that Boko Haram has used dozens of girls and women in their recent suicide bombings in Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger, raising fears it is using kidnap victims to target countries involved in setting up a regional force to combat the extremists. AG/IINA