Grenade explosions in Burundi kill at least five, injure 50

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NAIROBI, Sept.21 (Reuters) – Explosions left at least five dead and 50 injured in Burundi’s largest city, Bujumbura, on Monday evening, the prime minister and a health worker said after the latest in a series of attacks. attacks in this East African country.

The Home Office said on Twitter that “unidentified terrorists” were responsible. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the grenade attacks.

Two grenade explosions hit a bus parking lot in the city center, according to seven eyewitnesses, while a third explosion hit Jabe market in the Bwiza neighborhood, according to another witness.

Five people were killed and around 50 injured, a health worker helping to treat the injured told Reuters on Tuesday. The witnesses and the health worker requested anonymity.

A man on a bus hit by a grenade explosion said she killed at least three people, including a woman. The explosion injured his leg, he told Reuters while awaiting treatment.

“I saw people running around, some crawling for cover,” a witness to the second explosion said in the bus parking lot.

During a visit to the wounded at the hospital, Prime Minister Alain-Guillaume Bunyoni told reporters the attacks left two dead and pledged government aid for the wounded.

On Sunday, a grenade attack in the administrative capital Gitega left two dead, according to local media. It was not clear who was responsible.

An airport employee confirmed that there had been an attack at Bujumbura airport on Saturday. He declined to say which weapons were used and said the building was not damaged.

Congo-based rebel group Red Tabara claimed responsibility for the airport attack in a statement on Twitter. He said he fired a mortar as the president prepared to attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Red Tabara was formed in 2011 with the aim of overthrowing the government, which it says does not respect the rule of law.

Burundians accused of having links to Congo-based rebels have been tortured and likely disappeared, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Friday.

Unidentified bodies have been found in the river separating Burundi and Congo in recent months, he said.

Burundi, a nation of about 11.5 million people, has suffered decades of war and ethnic and political bloodshed. The United Nations says the ruling party’s youth wing and security services are complicit in the torture, gang rape and murder of political opponents, denies government accusations.

(This story corrects the death toll attributed to the Prime Minister to two instead of four, paragraph 7.)

Report from the Nairobi press room; Editing by Grant McCool

Our Standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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