Three killed in blast at Kenyan capital mosque

NAIROBI: Three people were killed and eight wounded in a blast outside a mosque in the Kenyan capital, the Kenyan Red Cross and police said Friday.

There were "three fatalities" as well as several wounded, some critical, a Red Cross official said after the "explosion near a mosque in Eastleigh", a largely ethnic Somali district of Nairobi.

"We were told that three people have died of injuries from the incident," Nairobi police chief Moses Nyakwama told AFP, "There are eight others in hospital, among them is a member of parliament."

The grenade was hurled at worshippers leaving a popular mosque minutes after the end of the evening prayers. A handful of protesters took to the streets soon after the blast but were quickly contained by a heavy police presence.

The Friday evening incident follows a roadside bomb explosion also in Eastleigh district on Wednesday evening, that killed one person and wounded eight others, as well as a bomb on a bus last month also in Eastleigh that killed nine.

Eyewitnesses say that police and rescue organisations are currently in the area in a security operation and that residents remain locked up in their houses.

"Three ambulances are in the area. Police are patrolling, many residents have locked themselves in their houses," Joe Chaudhry an area resident told AFP vvia phone.