Eyewitnesses in Burundi’s largest city, Bujumbura say two grenade explosions hit a bus parking lot killing at least five people and injuring fifty on Monday night.
A health worker said after a string of attacks in the east African country, a third blast hit Jabe Market in the Bwiza neighbourhood.
A man in a bus hit by a grenade explosion said it killed at least three people including a woman. The explosion blasted his leg, he too was awaiting treatment.
A witness to the second explosion at the bus parking lot said “I saw people running in all directions, some crawling to find cover”
It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the latest attacks. A grenade attack in the administrative capital Gitega killed two on Sunday, according to local reports.
In a statement on Twitter, the responsibility for an earlier attack on the Bujumbura airport on Saturday was claimed by Congo-based rebel group Red Tabara. It said it shot mortars as the president prepared to travel to the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Red Tabara was formed in 2011 with the aim of overthrowing the government, which it claims does not respect the rule of law.
Burundians accused of having links to the Congo-based rebels have been tortured and likely disappeared, Human Rights Watch said in a report on Friday. Unidentified bodies have been found in the river separating Burundi and Congo in recent months.
The United Nations says the youth wing of the ruling party and the security services are complicit in the torture, gang-rape and murder of political opponents, charges the government denies.