Attackers in Burundi's capital hurled a grenade Monday without wounding anyone, the latest act in a spree of violence coming on the eve of controversial presidential elections. The grenade exploded on a street close to the symbolic Independence Square in central Bujumbura. "We saw people passing in a car, they threw a bag and we heard an explosion," one woman who saw the attack told AFP.
More than two months of protests against President Pierre Nkurunziza's bid for a third consecutive term have left at least 100 dead in a tough government crackdown. Independent media has been shut down and many opponents have fled - joining an exodus of over 150,000 ordinary Burundians who fear their country may again be engulfed by widespread violence.
Earlier Monday, aid organisation Doctors Without Borders said in a statement around 1,000 people have been flocking from Burundi into Tanzania daily to flee violence arising from the polling. MSF estimates around 78,000 people from Burundi are amassed in Tanzania's Nyarugusu camp, along with 64,000 refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo who have been there since 1997.
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