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The scene of the explosion near a bus station in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi
The scene of the explosion near a bus station in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Photograph: Noor Khamis/Reuters
The scene of the explosion near a bus station in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Photograph: Noor Khamis/Reuters

Nairobi bus station attack kills six

This article is more than 12 years old
Minister says Kenyan authorities suspect Somalia link in grenade attack on crowd at bus terminal in centre of capital

A grenade attack at a bus station in central Nairobi has killed six people and wounded 69.

Police said it seemed that three explosive devices, possibly grenades, had been thrown from a moving vehicle into a crowd at the Machakos bus terminal near the central business district of the Kenyan capital early on Saturday evening.

The Kenya Red Cross said on Sunday morning that 59 men and 10 women had been admitted to hospital. Two of them were in intensive care.

After the attack, a fire blazed in a small crater at the bus station and police cordoned off the area. Bystanders helped carry the wounded to ambulances.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. The attack is similar to two strikes at a nearby bus station and a bar that killed one person and wounded more than 20 in October, soon after Kenya sent troops into Somalia to fight Islamist rebels.

Kenya's internal security minister, George Saitoti, said authorities suspected sympathisers with Somalia's al-Qaida-linked al-Shabaab militia were behind the attack.

The group has been linked to a string of attacks on Kenyan soil since Kenya sent troops into Somalia in October.

Kenya was worried that instability from Somalia's 21-year-old civil war was spilling across the two countries' shared border.

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