Assassination bid in Chad

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34129, 15 April 1976, Page 13

Assassination bid in Chad

f .Y.Z P A -Reuter—Copyright ' XDJAMENA (Chad), April 14. Six people were killed and 60 injured yesterday in a grenade attack on President Mallouni of Chad during a military parade marking the first anniversary of the coup d'etat that brought him to power.

Official sources say that the President escaped unharmed, but that one of his bodyguards was among those killed when three grenades were hurled into the official reviewing stand. The Minister of Information (Mr Mahmoud Abderaman), later read an official communique over the national radio service, describing the assassination bid as “an odious criminal attack perpetrated by’ bloodthirsty cynics, the eternally' discontented." The official sources say that the wounded include Mrs Djime Ngakinar. the wife of the Minister of the

Interior, and Mrs Neguo Djogo, the wife of the Minister of Finance. Several journalists from local news organisations are said to be in a critical condition in hospital. Four shots from an automatic weapon were heard after the explosions. The march-past stopped briefly, then resumed. It is not known who made the attack, or if anyone has been arrested. Leaflets were distributed in Ndiamena on Sunday, threatening disturbances at the parade celebrating the coup in which the former President Ngarta Tombalbaye was killed.