At least five people have been killed in a suicide bombing

Beni Mayor Narcis Muteba, a police colonel, warned the owners of popular places in the city of Beni that they would have to add security guards with metal detectors as “terrorists” could strike again.

Congolese authorities have called on churches, restaurants and hotels to tighten security on Sunday, with suicide bombers in eastern Congo fearing more violence after five people were killed in the first attack of its kind.

Beni Mayor Narcis Muteba, a police colonel, warned the owners of popular places in the city of Beni that they would have to add security guards with metal detectors as “terrorists” could strike again.

Muteba told the Associated Press on Sunday: “We are telling people to be careful during this festival and to avoid public places.

Officials initially said the death toll was six and a suicide bomber, but Muteba corrected that number to five victims a day later. Another 13 people were hospitalized after an explosion at the entrance of an inbox restaurant on Christmas day.

Shortly after the attack, an AFP reporter found the remains of three bodies at the site of an explosion at an inbox restaurant. Debris from tables, chairs, bottles and glass was scattered at the site of the blast.

A City Hall source told AFP the dead included two children as well as two local officials. Two eyewitnesses told AFP that more than 30 people were celebrating Christmas when the bomb exploded.

“I was sitting there,” local radio presenter Nicholas Aquila told AFP. “There was a motorbike parked there. Suddenly the motorbike sped off, then a deafening sound. ”

Rachel Magali, who was at the restaurant with her brother-in-law and a few others, described hearing a loud noise and then people started crying.

“We ran to the exit where I saw people lying down,” he told the AP. “Green plastic chairs were scattered everywhere and I also saw that the head and arms were no longer attached. It was really scary. ”

A police vehicle drove the injured to a nearby medical center, which was immediately shut down.

Saturday’s bloodshed has dramatically deepened fears that Islamic extremism has taken hold in Beni, which has already been attacked year after year by rebels from the Allied Democratic Forces, or ADF.

Muteba has blamed the latest attacks on rebels whose exact links to international extremist groups are unclear. The Islamic State’s Central African Republic has blamed the ADF for the attack, but it is unknown at this time what role the larger organization played in organizing and financing the attack.

There are alarming signs of growing religious extremism around Beni: Earlier this year, two local imams were killed within weeks of each other, one of whom spoke out against the ADF.

Then in June, the Islamic State group’s Central African province claimed responsibility for a suicide bomber who blew himself up at a bar in Beni without harming others. On the same day, two people were injured in another explosion at a Catholic church.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by News East India staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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