Grenade attacks in Burundi capital wound seven: police
BUJUMBURA — Grenade attacks injured seven people and nearly two dozen offices of Burundi's ruling party were torched in violence linked to disputed elections, police said on Sunday.
"There were four grenade attacks which injured seven people in three neighbourhoods in Bujumbura," said police spokesman Pierre Chanel Ntarabaganyi of the incidents late Saturday.
"The attacks aimed to kill and appeared to be coordinated," he said, adding that the attackers had escaped on motorcycles.
"They were acts of sabotage linked to the elections," he said.In the provinces, nearly two dozen local offices of the ruling CNDD-FDD party were set on fire, police added.
Tensions in Burundi have been high since opposition parties rejected the results of the May 24 local elections, saying the CNDD-FDD had engineered its landslide win by fraud.
They are also boycotting the June 28 presidential poll, leaving President Pierre Nkurunziza the only candidate.
The government has tightened control over the activities of opposition parties and warned them against any public disturbances.
The police spokesman said one of the attacks took place before the entrance of a major hotel, "causing no damage or injury", while a second grenade exploded near a church injuring four people.
The third attack happened at a bus station, injuring one person, and the fourth grenade exploded at the home of a local representative of the ruling people, leaving two people hurt including a child, police said.
A senior security official, who asked not to be named, laid the blame for the attacks squarely on the opposition.
"The grenades, the torching of the CNDD-FDD offices were planned acts of destabilisation by the opposition," the official told AFP.
"We are aware of who prepared them and I can assure you that we will punish these terrorists without any mercy," he vowed.
