3 killed in fresh Burundi clashes

2010-06-22 17:31

Bujumbura - Three people were killed and several wounded in Burundi in the latest spate of attacks to rock the east African nation amid a tense electoral crisis, officials said on Tuesday.

Two died overnight in separate grenade blasts while a local head of the Burundian ruling party's youth wing was shot dead south of the capital Bujumbura a day earlier, police said.

"A grenade exploded in a bar in Bujumbura's Bwiza neighbourhood, killing one and wounding six," police spokesperson Pierre Chanel Ntarabaganyi told AFP.

"Another was hurled at a home in Nyabiraba... killing one and wounding two," he said, adding that some 30 people were wounded in similar attacks since the weekend.

In the early hours of Monday "the president of the ruling party's youth league was assassinated by unknown gunmen," army spokesperson Gaspard Baratuza also said.

The political and security climate has been tense in Burundi since May 24 local polls, which saw all of the country's opposition parties accuse President Pierre Nkurunziza's ruling party of rigging its way to victory.

Opposition parties have since announced they would boycott the June 28 presidential poll due at the of the month, leaving the incumbent as the only candidate, despite international calls for them to rejoin the race.

In Burundi, which is still struggling to emerge from 13 years of civil war and is packed with recently demobbed fighters, grenades go for one dollar on the black market and are the weapon of choice for everybody from political groups to disgruntled lovers.

- SAPA