NAIROBI , Kenya (AFP) — The mayor of Burundi’s capital on Monday vowed to crush “terrorists” blamed for a spate of weekend grenade attacks that left three people dead and about 20 injured.
Hundreds have been killed and a quarter of a million people have fled Burundi since President Pierre Nkurunziza’s controversial decision April 2015 to run for a third term, a vote he won amid opposition boycotts in July.
Anti-government protests were brutally quashed and killings and attacks have become a regular feature in the troubled country as a political crisis shows no sign of abating.
Bujumbura mayor Freddy Mbonimpa told AFP that three people had died in the capital since Friday in “terrorist acts targeting peaceful citizens.”
“These terrorists are trying to instil panic… we are in the process of breaking up these terrorist groups with the help of the local population,” he said.
Grenade attacks in Bujumbura intensified last month after a month-long lull in March.
A grenade blast in a bar on Sunday evening killed one person and injured five others in the working-class district of Bwiza in central Bujumbura.
On Saturday two women died after a grenade was thrown into a small market in the city’s north-east. On Friday, eight people were injured in another grenade attack, a police officer said.
esd/ach/boc
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