BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS
DATE:
04/07/2008
Bomb At Belarus Independence Day Concert; Around 40 Injured
MINSK, Belarus (AFP)--A bomb packed with nuts and bolts injured dozens of people at a huge outdoor concert in Minsk attended by President Alexander Lukashenko, officials said Friday.
A large part of the Belarus capital remained cordoned off Friday but there was no immediate indication who was responsible for the attack at the Independence Day concert late 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 that the bomb was apparently packed with, television images showed.
It wasn't 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 saw 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.
Belarussian authorities opened a criminal inquiry into the explosion.
Security officers cordoned off the city center and bomb experts were shown in television images on Friday 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 Belarussian 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 Belarussians' concert continued after the explosion.
The Belarussian president has ruled ex-Soviet Belarus with an iron fist since 1994. His rule is opposed by many Belarussian 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 U.S. regards Belarus as "the last dictatorship in Europe."
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