CAR: One Killed and 10 Injured in Grenade Explosion in Bangui

By Staff Writer

 A child was killed and ten other people were badly injured on Thursday July 3 when a grenade exploded in the capital of Central African Republic of Congo (CAR), Bangui. 

The grenade went off when the boy opened an abandoned bag lying on a bridge in the Yapele neighborhood of Bangui, according to witnesses.

 The child was killed on the spot, while the injured were brought to a nearby hospital. 

CAR has been in turmoil since the Islamist Seleka rebel group overthrew President Francois Bozize, a Christian, in March 2013.

 About 2 000 French and 6 500 African forces are battling to contain the violence in the former French colony. 

Thousands of people are reported to have been killed in fighting and about a million displaced.

Mean while African nations have agreed to suspend military operations for six months against Rwandan rebels in the Congo region to give them more time to lay down their arms, regional government officials said.

Disarmament would improve the prospects of stability in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and its neighbor the CAR, where millions have been killed in nearly two decades of conflict that has sucked in an array of armed factions and national armies.

The suspension was announced after a meeting in Angola on Wednesday July 2 of foreign ministers from a regional block including states in central and eastern Africa.

Last year, bolstered by a special brigade with a robust mandate to carry out offensive operations, Congo's U.N. mission, MONUSCO, launched a military campaign against the remaining armed groups operating in the region.