With less than ten days to its general election, a grenade blast has killed two people in Burundi’s economic capital Bujumbura, witnesses and an administrative source said on Monday, raising fears of a likely violent polls ahead.
The attack on Sunday was blamed on “unidentified criminals” who targeted a bar in a working-class district of the main town in the small central African country.
The bar belongs to a member of the Imbonerakure youth wing of the ruling party, the National Council for the Defence of Democracy (CNDD-FDD), which grew powerful after Burundi plunged into civil war in 1993-2005, witnesses told AFP.
The United Nations has listed the Imbonerakure as a militia force. Local residents said the bar was a meeting place for members of the youth league from the neighbourhood.
The CNDD-FDD is being challenged at the May 20 poll by former militia chief Agathon Rwasa and his National Freedom Council (CNL), the main opposition.
“The grenade was thrown by unidentified criminals… Two people were killed on the spot and eight more were evacuated to nearby hospitals,” said a local official who asked not to be named.
The presidential election on May 20 will mainly pit Evariste Ndayishimiye, the protege of outgoing President Pierre Nkurunziza, against Rwasa, the veteran CNL leader. Both candidates come from the majority Hutu ethnic group.
In power since 2005, Nkurunziza defied expectations in June 2018 when he announced that he would not stand for office again, despite a new constitution modified after a referendum, which allowed him to do so.