Eight deaths in jailbreak

EIGHT people died and 44 were injured yesterday during an attempted jail break in the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Sud-Kivu province, police said.

The casualties occurred at the Bukavu central prison after a grenade exploded in the hands of an inmate, senior regional police official Gaston Luzembo said.

“A colonel inmate gave a grenade to a civilian inmate and told him to throw it in front of doors to create panic to facilitate the escape,” Gaston Luzembo, said. “Not being a military man, the civilian took the pin out of the grenade but kept it and it exploded in his hands.