Nairobi blast kills three, injures MP

 By Cyrus Ombati

NAIROBI; KENYA: Three people were on Friday night killed and eight others including Kamkunji MP Yusuf Hassan and a child wounded in a blast outside a mosque in Eastleigh, Nairobi.

The blast happened about 8pm outside a busy mosque along Muratina Road Section I in a busy estate.

Mr Hassan suffered a fractured leg and was taken to the Aga Khan Hospital and the others to the Kenyatta National Hospital, six of them with serious injuries.

He said he had been talking to a group of youths after leaving the mosque when someone threw a grenade at them. The grenade caused a huge crater at the scene.

Deputy speaker Farah Maalim and Makadara MP Mike Sonko are among dignitaries who arrived to visit their injured colleague.

Hassan's bodyguard suffered hand injuries.

The blast sparked violent protests, with rowdy youth barricading roads with burning tyres. Police who included GSU personnel had to fire to the air to disperse the crowd that also attacked even journalists. The group said they wanted to flush out known terrorists who have been operating there.

The situation was contained by police who cordoned off the mosque. The scene of the blast was littered with blood and belongings of the victims.

The attack comes just two days after another that killed one person.

Police had cordoned off the area from the public as they tried to investigate the cause.

The same area suffered a serious blast last month when an IED that had been abandoned in a bus went off killing ten passengers.

The incident comes after another blast happened on Wednesday in Joska Nairobi’s Eastleigh area where at least seven people were injured.

The seven victims were pedestrians who fell to the blast which went off in Joska area, few meters from where another explosion had occurred in November 16.

One of the Wednesday night victims blast succumbed to injuries while undergoing treatment on Thursday while six others were treated and discharged.

The Wednesday blast seemed to have been set off from a distance or one of the victims stepped on it before it went off hitting the pedestrians, police said.

The police boss stated that they were interested to know how and why the three blasts had occurred in the same area in the past.

Earlier on, a few meters away from the Wednesday night incident a suspected terrorist had been arrested as after an explosion he had planned to detonate inside a supermarket went off and injured him in November.

Kenya has experienced a series of explosions after troops rolled into Somalia last year to hunt down Al-Shabaab militants who had been blamed for several insecurity incidents.

It is believed the attacks are being committed by remnants of the terror group.