Muslim women in Chad will no longer wear their full face veil.
This comes after the government banned the full face veil following suicide bomb attacks in the country on Monday.
The government has blamed Nigeria’s militant group Boko Haram for the attacks which killed more than 20 people.
“Wearing the full face veil which is also called ‘Burqa’ must stop immediately from today, not only in public places and schools but throughout the whole of the country,” Prime Minister Kalzeube Pahimi Deubet said in a speech to religious leaders the day before the start of the holy Muslim festival of Ramadaan.
Any type of clothing that leaves only the eyes visible is a form of “camouflage” and is now banned, he added, asking the religious leaders to spread the message in their mosques, churches and holy places.
Prime Minister Deubet said instructions had been given to security forces to “go into the markets and to seize all the burqas on sale and burn them”.
Anyone found wearing a burqa would be “arrested, tried and sentenced in summary proceedings”, he added.
Chad’s government on Tuesday declared three days of national mourning for the 33 people killed and more than 100 others wounded in the blasts.
Monday’s bombings, the first such attacks in the capital of Muslim-majority Chad, have been blamed on Boko Haram jihadists who have previously carried out bloody assaults on villages along the border with Nigeria.
The Islamist militants have used female suicide bombers to launch attacks in the past by hiding explosive devices under their clothes.
The attackers were on motorcycles when they blew themselves up outside two police buildings in the capital, N’Djamena.
Chad President Idriss Deby said he was “not surprised” the country has been targeted because of the leading role its army is playing in a regional offensive against Boko Haram fighters operating out of northeastern Nigeria.
