Rwanda Grenade Attack Claims 2 Lives

A grenade attack in the capital of Rwanda on Tuesday evening has killed two people and wounded about eighteen people, according to local police.

The attack occurred near a fruit and vegetable market in Kigali.

Since the beginning of last year, eleven such violent blasts have struck the city, killing seven and hurting about 100 people, Reuters reported.

The Rwandan government has blamed two former army officers now living in exile in the Democratic Republic of Congo for the previous attacks. About thirty other suspects are currently on trial in connection with those acts.

It is not clear who is the principal suspect in the latest incident.

Police spokesman Theos Badege said an investigation has been opened but no suspects have been arrested, according to Agence France Presse.

Another opposition group also in exile condemned the violence.

Either the government is implicated in these periodic grenade attacks, so as to find pretext to crack down on the political opposition at a time of dwindling internal and foreign support, or the regime has lost the ability to protect its citizens, Theogene Rudasingwa, of the opposition Rwanda National Congress (RNC), said in a statement.

Rudasingwa, a former close adviser to Rwandan President Paul Kagame and now based in the US, also called the grenade blast a cowardly act.

Rwanda, a tiny nation in central Africa, is seeking to recover from the savage civil war that killed 800,000 people in 1994.