40 Injured by Grenade in Latest Outbreak of Burundi Violence
About 40 people were wounded, some gravely, when an attacker hurled a grenade into the main market in the capital, Bujumbura, on Friday, security sources said.
The grenade exploded in a part of the market reserved for selling hardware and used-car parts, they said. The wounded were taken to the nearby Prince Louis Rwagasore clinic.
At least nine people were killed and 17 wounded last Sunday in an attack on a Roman Catholic church in Burundi’s northeast Muyinga province by a gunman and others wielding machetes.
Ethnic violence and strikes in August swept much of the central African nation, which has the same ethnic mix of Hutus and Tutsis as neighboring Rwanda and has been teetering on the brink of anarchy.
Seven people were wounded Aug. 11 when an unidentified attacker threw a grenade into the central market.
Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, Burundi’s interim leader, said last month the country would be plunged back into turmoil unless rival political groups resolved the question of who will be the next president.
Ntibantunganya, a Hutu and former National Assembly chief, has been interim president since President Cyprian Ntaryamira was killed in the same plane crash as Rwandan leader Juvenal Habyarimana on April 6, sparking massacres across Rwanda.
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