8 Dead, 44 Hurt in Attempted DR Congo Jail Break

Eight people died and 44 were injured on Sunday 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 told Agence France Presse.

"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, a senior regional police official, told AFP.

"Not being a military man, the civilian took the pin out of the grenade but kept it and it exploded in his hands," Luzembo said.

"There were eight dead -- four civilians and four military," he said. "There were also 44 injured, including 32 civilians, with the rest military."

He said three prisoners managed to escape on Saturday with the "complicity" of the head of the jail. They included the man who was the official representative of the prisoners.

Luzembo said the colonel then tried "to take advantage of this unstable situation" to launch the failed jail break.

Prison breaks and attempted escapes are frequent in DR Congo.

In September, nearly 1,000 inmates escaped from a prison in the eastern Katanga province after a spectacular raid by masked gunmen to spring a militia leader from death row.

Prisons in the vast former Belgian colony are notoriously overcrowded and unsanitary with disease and malnutrition rife.