NAIROBI (AFP) – At least two people were wounded in the Kenyan capital when a bomb was set off in the Eastleigh neighbourhood of Nairobi, the latest in a string of attacks, police said Tuesday.
“Two people have sustained injuries and rushed to hospital… it was a very powerful explosion,” said Wilfred Mbithi, head of police operations in the city.
Bomb experts scoured the scene after the blast, which was set off on a bridge as people travelled on busy streets to work on Tuesday morning, and is suspected to have been an improvised explosive device, Mbithi said.
“I just heard a loud blast and as I ran, people shouted at me saying I was bleeding,” said one victim who only identified himself as John, before he was taken to hospital.
Kenya Red Cross said three people were wounded in the blast, some with minor injuries.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which took place in a neighbourhood that is home to many Somalis, as well as ethnic Somali Kenyans.
Suspected Kenyan supporters of Somalia’s Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab insurgents have carried out a string of attacks in opposition to Nairobi sending troops into Somalia last year to fight the extremists.
Mbithi said investigations were being carried out to see if the blast was linked to the Shebab.
The blast comes a day after attackers hurled a grenade into a church in the northeastern town of Garissa, close to the Somali border, killing one policeman and wounding 14 people.
Kenyan troops, now integrated into an African Union force, seized the Shebab bastion of Kismayo in September, a key southern Somali port, prompting warnings of retaliation from both the insurgents and their Kenyan supporters.
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