Two people were injured on Saturday night after a suspected IED went off outside Smothers Restaurant at the Tom Mboya – Latema Road intersection in Nairobi.
Nairobi regional police commander Philip Ndolo said a man of Somali descent had hired a trolley pusher to move a carton box from Latema road to Kenya Cinema when the luggage went off.
The device inside the box is suspected to have been an improvised explosive device, he said. He gave the name of the trolley pusher as Joseph Okinyi.
“As they were reaching the junction between Latema and Tom Mboya, the gentleman pretended to have forgotten his ID and therefore requested Okinyi to stop there so that he can dash back to get his ID,” Ndolo said.
He said it was when Okinyi was still standing there that the box exploded.
“Okinyi suffered some slight injuries on his right hand while a newspaper vendor who just nearby suffered some slight injuries on his right leg,” Ndolo said.
He spoke at the scene shortly after the incident happened.
The explosion comes in the wake of a terror attack at the upmarket DusitD2 complex on 14 Riverside Drive on January 15 that claimed 21 lives.
The Somali-based jihadi group al Shabaab claimed responsibility.