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Bomb injures dozens in Belarus

A bomb packed with nuts and bolts injured dozens of people at a huge outdoor concert in Minsk, officials said, and a second explosive device was found in the Belarusian capital, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported yesterday.

“A second explosive device was found yesterday in Minsk. This will help in the investigation of yesterday’s explosion,” Belarusian Interior Minister Vladimir Naumov was quoted as saying.

A large part of the Belarus capital remained cordoned off yesterday but there was no immediate indication of who was responsible for the attack at the Independence Day concert late on Thursday.

“Around 40 people have been injured,” Interior Minister Vladimir Naumov was quoted as saying by Russia’s ITAR-TASS news agency. “There are different types of injuries, some of them heavy, but no one was killed.”

There were tens of thousands of people at the concert in the center of the capital. The injured were taken to hospital in ambulances as police picked through the nuts and bolts with which the bomb was apparently packed, television images showed.

It was not known whether the authoritarian Lukashenko was at the concert at the exact time of the blast but he was shown in a white suit visiting the site with officials after the explosion.

Health ministry officials said around 50 people had been hospitalized, Interfax news agency reported. It quoted witnesses as saying they had seen people with fingers and toes blown off in the moments after the blast.

“All the injuries I have seen are light or medium. No one’s life is under threat. All the injuries are shrapnel wounds,” said Viktor Serenko, chief doctor at a hospital in Minsk that was treating six of the injured.

Authorities opened a criminal inquiry into the explosion.

Security officers cordoned off the city center and bomb experts were shown in television images yesterday sifting through debris at the scene.

Several ambulances could also be seen nearby.

“I think that the explosion was organized by a hooligan who didn’t like our beautiful and well-organized party. That provoked him to cause this blast,” Minsk police chief Anatoly Kuleshov said on Belarusian state television.

“Lukashenko has called for an urgent investigation into the reasons of the explosion,” Belarus’ state news agency reported.

The news agency said the “We are Belarusians” concert continued after the explosion.

The Belarusian president has ruled ex-Soviet Belarus with an iron fist since 1994. His rule is opposed by many Belarusian nationalists, who criticize his strong ties with Russia.

Lukashenko, a former head of a state farm, was elected to a third five-year term in 2006 in an election heavily criticized by observers amid clashes in Minsk between security forces and opposition activists.

The US regards Belarus as “the last dictatorship in Europe.”
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