"Boko Haram is making a mistake by targeting Chad," Communications Minister Hassan Sylla Bakari said on state television, noting that two bombers were involved in each attack. "These lawless terrorists will be chased out and neutralised wherever they are."
Most of the dead and wounded were found in the police training school where a suicide bomber entered the compound and detonated his charge among a group of cadets, authorities said. A second suicide bomber blew himself up outside the gates of the school, killing several people.
One witness at the central police station, where a third suicide bomber on a motorbike struck, told Reuters by telephone that he had seen three bodies on the ground.
Photos circulated on Twitter of several blood-stained bodies and damaged motorbikes reportedly used in the attack.
"We could see dead bodies and wounded everywhere on the ground," said a witness, who identified himself as Yerima, who rushed from his office after hearing the explosion. "There were five or six dead bodies and many wounded."
The French foreign ministry condemned the incidents and said it would stand by Chad in the fight against Islamist militancy.
Wounded from the attack were taken to three hospitals, which were overwhelmed by the influx of patients. In the Liberty hospital, a Reuters cameraman witnessed wounded members of the security forces splayed across the bloodstained, sandy tiled floor as doctors scrambled to treat them.
Chad has lost dozens of soldiers fighting al Qaeda-linked groups in northern Mali and Boko Haram 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, N'Djamena had escaped attack so far.
Reuters
