ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (Reuters) – An apparently accidental hand-grenade explosion wounded 33 people, nine seriously, on Thursday at the central bus station in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, police said.
“This does not appear to be a terrorist attack. It seems a passenger was carrying the grenade in their luggage and it detonated accidentally,” federal police commander Demash Hailu told Reuters.
In the past, Ethiopia has accused arch-foe Eritrea of backing rebels who have bombed civilian targets in Addis Ababa.
Blasts at two petrol stations killed two people a day after local, regional and federal elections in April 2008, then a bomb tore through a minibus taxi a month later, killing six. (Reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Michael Roddy)