Eritrea bomb kills five, wounds 88-UN sources
(Adds details, Eritrean and Ethiopian comment, revises toll)
NAIROBI, May 27 (Reuters) – Five people were killed and 88 wounded when a bomb exploded in a western town in the tiny Red Sea state of Eritrea, U.N. sources said on Thursday.
The bomb went off on Tuesday night in the centre of Barentu town as the impoverished country of three million held celebrations marking independence from Ethiopia.
The sources, lowering an earlier death toll of seven, said buses were used to take the injured to hospital in Barentu and also Keren over 140 kilometres (90 miles) away.
The Eritrean government gave few details about the attack but according to U.N. sources the bomb exploded under a bus at 11.45 p.m. as people danced and played music in the open air at a road intersection to celebrate independence.
The United Nations suspended all travel by staff of its relief and development agencies to Barentu and surrounding Gash-Barka province following the blast, U.N. officials said.
The Eritrean government said neighbouring Ethiopia, its foe in a 1998-2000 border war, and Sudan were behind the blast.
“These are groups sponsored and trained by Ethiopia and Sudan,” presidential spokesman Yemane Gebremeskel told Reuters in Nairobi by telephone from Asmara. “It’s an open secret that they back these groups, they meet in Addis Ababa all the time.”
“This is nothing new,” Gebremeskel added. “What is new is that it was at a mass gathering, there was a cultural event going on. From time to time there are these attacks from people trained by Sudan and Ethiopia.”
Bomb attacks in the west of Eritrea have become regular occurrences in recent months. The Eritrean government has blamed them on Islamic groups backed by the Sudanese government.
The Sudanese government has consistently denied involvement.
Officials in Khartoum could not immediately be reached for comment about Tuesday’s blast. Ethiopia denied involvement.
“The problem (motivating the bombers) is purely internal and indicates the growing frustration and resistance of the Eritrean people against their own government,” the Ethiopian Ministry of Information said in a statement.
“Ethiopia believes that the Eritrean government must search the causes and solutions for its problem in its background.”
The Eritrean government said it had prevented a wave of other attacks timed to coincide with independence day.
(Additional reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse)