Experts detonate grenade left at a Mombasa church

Bomb experts Saturday detonated a grenade left at a church compound in Tononoka, Mombasa

The hand grenade was found at the Jesus Healing and Miracle Ministry International’s compound, sparking fears among residents.

According to a worshipper identified only as Mama Isaac, a young man aged between 18 and 25 passed by the church carrying a rucksack on his back at about 11 am.

Wearing jeans and T-shirt, the man pretended to have a short call before carefully placing the rucksack on the ground, then slowly removed ‘something’ from it.

Afterwards, he vanished from the church compound into the neighbouring villages before three Tononoka Secondary School students saw the ‘strange object’ on the grass.

“On inspecting it they started to shout and alerted everybody to keep off,” Mama Isaac said adding that some mechanics who came by “disappeared very fast” after seeing the object.

Sensing danger, she called the nearby police station whose officers arrived ten minutes later.

The police cordoned off the place that had attracted a huge crowd of curious onlookers.

A street mother who lives with her two daughters at a garbage collection point close to the scene disappeared when people started questioning whether she had seen the suspect who had dropped the grenade.

At 11.40am the Anti-Terrorist Police Unit (ATPU) arrived at the scene and after inspection declared it was dangerous to move the grenade whose pin had been removed.

Bomb experts arrived at the scene at 3.15 pm and started the process of detonating the grenade.

Ten minutes later, the explosive – said to have a high magnitude destruction potential – was detonated.