Davao City grenade attack: Injuries rise to 41

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DAVAO CITY, Philippines –The number of injured persons in Saturday’s grenade explosion during a village fiesta in remote Paquibato District rose to 41, radio reports said Sunday.

Reports quoted police as saying that four children were added to the list of those hurt.
Earlier, Major Jacob Oblgado, spokesperson of the military’s 10th Infantry Division, said an unidentified man tossed a grenade at a crowd watching a circus performance in the village of Fatima.

Obligado said the victims were rushed to the nearest hospitals in Panabo City in Davao del Norte.

The blast in Davao city was apparently meant to strike an army camp but the grenade bounced off netting and landed inside an adjacent basketball gym where a circus was being held late Saturday, police said.

“It bounced when it hit a net barrier of the camp and exploded inside the gymnasium,” police chief Superintendent Ronald dela Rosa said.

Dela Rosa said none of the injuries were life-threatening.

It was not yet known who carried out the attack and why, but communist and Muslim insurgents are known to operate in the area and have been blamed for similar incidents in the past.

Davao city is on Mindanao island in the southern third of the mainly Catholic Philippines where deadly insurgencies have raged for decades. Dennis Santos, Inquirer Mindanao, AFP