The Danish foreign ministry confirmed two nationals had been “wounded in Gabon” without giving any further details.
The two Danes, who were working for the National Geographic channel, were stabbed while shopping in a market popular with tourists, said defence minister Etienne Massard, adding that the attack appeared to be politically motivated.
“According to the first testimonies at the scene, the assailant, a 53-year-old Nigerian man, shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ during the attack. He was arrested on the spot,” said Massard. He said the government was treating the attack as “an isolated act”.
The Nigerian, who has lived in Gabon for 19 years, “in his first statements said he acted in retaliation for US attacks against Muslims and America’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital”.
One of the Danes remains in a serious condition, government spokesman Alain-Claude Bilie By Nze told AFP. The two were rushed to a hospital in the capital Libreville.
An investigation has been launched. “Following this cowardly and despicable act, the government wishes to assure the people that Gabon will not become a theatre for attacks against our way of life,” the Danish defence minister said in a televised address.
“Everything will be done to ensure that the perpetrator and any accomplices are punished to the full extent of the law.”
Residents said the attacker was from the Muslim community of northern Nigeria. He sold smoked meat at the market. Police in Gabon arrested dozens of people on Sunday over the knife attack.
Gabon is a small French-speaking former colony with 1.8 million inhabitants, and even though only 6 percent of the population is Muslim, the Gabonese Government celebrates both Christian and Muslim holy days as national holidays.
The country’s executive branch was controlled by a Muslim, Omar Bongo, from 1973 to 2009, after Bongo converted to Islam in 1973.
In 2004 a first national conference for the Muslims of Gabon was held in the capital city of the country, Libreville, on the theme ‘United for the sake of a flourishing and tolerant Islam’. During the conference, heads of some 34 Islamic societies of Gabon signed an agreement for undertaking coordinated Islamic works on the sidelines of the event.
Gabon is a member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
