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Even if you didn’t grow up in a safety-conscious, gun-owning family like I did, you probably know that shooting firearms up into the air is not a great idea. What goes up, must come down.
Still, despite its obvious dangers, celebratory gunfire is common in many places around the world. People are happy and excited – at a wedding, for example – and want to make some party noise.
One of those places is Chad, but one incident this year was particularly horrific.
On May 9, authorities announced the provisional results of the presidential election held three days earlier. They declared the then-transitional president, General Mahamat Idriss Déby, had won. Chad’s security forces, loyal to Déby, celebrated by opening fire over cities and towns.
“They were shooting in the air,” one witness described, “and in any direction they wanted.”
The security forces loyal to Déby didn’t limit themselves to small arms either. They used large-caliber weapons and rockets, too.
When it was all over, at least 11 people lay dead. Hundreds were injured, including some across the border from Chad’s capital N’Djamena, in neighboring Cameroon.
The mother of a two-year-old girl, Safia Imam, who was killed in N’Djamena, said: “We were laying down a mat in the house. I was with my husband, and we had our two kids with us. There was noise all around and suddenly Safia was hit. The bullet came through the house … I lost my daughter. I am still in shock.”
For some people in Chad, the spate of gunfire on May 9 was less a celebration and more an act of intimidation. Violence had marred the run-up to the presidential election, and pro-democracy leaders had called for a boycott, describing the election as a “masquerade” aimed at supporting a “dynastic dictatorship.”
Some thus saw the security forces’ excessive gunfire on May 9 as, “a warning for us to not dare to protest” the announced results.
Whatever the intention of the shootings was, however, their victims deserve justice. Six months on, they’ve yet to see any. The government should investigate the events of May 9 and prosecute those found responsible.
The government should also fully support the victims by paying their medical bills and other related expenses. In the hours and days that followed the shooting, hundreds of people across Chad sought hospital care. Some still owe large sums in medical fees.
The deaths and injuries on May 9 were all avoidable tragedies. Firing into the air is always a bad idea, and adding rockets and other weapons to mix only makes it worse.
Survivors and victims should get justice and compensation. And maybe Chad’s security forces should get some basic training in gun safety.
