MINSK, (Reuters) – A blast tore through a crowded metro station in the Belarus capital Minsk in evening rush hour yesterday, killing 11 people in what President Alexander Lukashenko said was an attempt to destabilise the country.
The blast occurred on a platform at around 6 p.m. at the Oktyabrskaya metro station — one of the city’s busiest underground rail junctions — about 100 metres (yards) from the main presidential headquarters.
Witnesses said it tore through a crush of waiting passengers just as a train pulled in. “There was blood everywhere, in splashes and in pools. I saw pieces of flesh. It was terrible,” a 47-year-old man, who gave his name only as Viktor, said. “Prosecutors qualify this as a terrorist act,” a source in Lukashenko’s administration told Reuters.
As police placed the capital on high alert, Lukashenko, the autocratic leader who has led the ex-Soviet country since 1994, linked the explosion to a previous unsolved blast in 2008, saying: “These are perhaps links in a single chain.”
“We must find out who gained by undermining peace and stability in the country, who stands behind this,” he said in televised remarks.
Lukashenko, who is at odds with Western governments over a police crackdown on an opposition rally against his re-election last December, said: “I do not rule out that this (the blast) was a gift from abroad.”
He was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying 11 people had been killed and 100 injured. A presidential administration source later said 126 people had been injured.
