A grenade attack on a military base in Burundi's
capital killed a child and wounded his father and one other person, an official
and witnesses said on Sunday, as violence linked to the president's disputed
re-election persists.
More than 400 people have been killed since April
last year when President Pierre Nkurunziza announced he would run for a third
term. That sparked weeks of street protests led by the opposition which said
his bid was unconstitutional.
Witnesses and an official said the attack late on
Saturday had targeted the base in the Ngagara neighbourhood in Bujumbura.
"The attackers were in a car and threw two
grenades at a military station which injured two people including a child and
his father, both coming from a hair salon," a Ngagara administrator on
Sunday.
"The child died after but his father is
undergoing treatment,” he said.
A witness who gave his name only as Paul, 33, said a
soldier was also wounded, but the administrator could not confirm it.
It was not immediately clear who was responsible,
but activists and authorities have in the past reported a number of apparently
targeted killings.
On Friday, unidentified gunmen shot dead two people
in an apparent targeted killing the Gisozi commune in Mwaro province some 60 km
(37 miles) from Bujumbura.
According to the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, nearly
quarter of a million people have fled the violence in Burundi, which emerged
from an ethnically charged civil war ten years ago.
In December, the African Union's (AU) Peace and
Security Council announced plans to deploy a 5,000-strong force, saying it
could invoke an article of the AU's charter that allowed it to intervene
whether or not the government agreed.
Last week, the AU said it had appointed five heads
of state to try to convince the government of Burundi to accept the
peacekeeping force.
Nkurunziza, whose army foiled an attempted coup in
May, is steadfastly opposed to the plan, saying its deployment would amount to
an invasion.
- Reuters
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