Three explosions rocked the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa on Friday afternoon, killing a person and bringing the death toll from a total of nine blasts during the day to at least four, with 41 wounded, police said.
At least one person was killed and four were injured in the latest blasts, two of which occurred at a regional bus station in Addis Ababa’s main Mercato market area, and the other in the northern neighbourhood of Yeka, police said.
There was no casualty information about the explosion in Yeka, which appeared to have been detonated under a bridge, they said.
Earlier, six explosions — three within a 20-minute period — went off outside two office buildings in the Piazza commercial district, a crowded cafe in Mercato and three buses in the morning and early afternoon.
At least three people were killed and 37 people were wounded, 18 seriously, in those blasts, police said.
The deadliest took place at the Cafe Amico around 9.40am local time, where two people were killed and seven others hurt, two of them seriously, while patrons were sipping mid-morning coffee, police and witnesses said.
A passenger on a regional bus was also killed when the vehicle was hit by a blast in which 16 others were injured, 10 of them seriously, according to police.
Another 14 people were hurt in two of three earlier separate blasts — two in the northern Piazza commercial district and one on a bus near a station in western Addis Ababa — that started in the pre-dawn hours, they said. — AFP