Red Cross: At least 37 killed, 180 hurt in southern Beirut suicide bombings

Scores killed, wounded in Beirut suicide bombings 02:22

 

 A pair of suicide bombings killed at least 37 people and wounded about 181 more Thursday evening in southern Beirut, a Lebanese Red Cross official Rodney Eid told CNN.

The blasts shook Bourj al-Barajneh, one of the biggest and most well-known largely Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, according to the state-run National News Agency.

The Lebanese news agency reported that two suicide bombers blew themselves up within 150 meters (490 feet) and five minutes of each other.

It was not immediately clear where they came from, who they were associated with or what their motivation was.

At least four buildings nearby were damaged. Video distributed by Reuters showed a dramatic scene in the bombings' aftermath, with rescue workers carrying out victims past piles of rubble and through a mass of people.

After the blasts, authorities closed all entrances to Bourj al-Barajneh, NNA reported. Judge Sakr Sakr dispatched military police and other authorities to investigate the blasts, cordoning off the area around them.

Citizens have been urged to stay away from the bloody scene as well as nearby hospitals to make it easier for ambulances to get back and forth.

Bombings not new to Lebanon

Lebanon has seen plenty of violence involving numerous parties in recent decades, including recently as fallout from the bloody civil war in neighboring Syria.

That war has flooded the Middle Eastern nation with more than a million refugees, according to the United Nations, and also contributed to intermittent spillover violence.

Most of that bloodshed has been concentrated near the Syrian border, though not all, as evidenced by a November 2013 Beirut bombing that killed at least 23 people and wounded about 150 more.

The al Qaeda-linked militant group Abdullah Azzam Brigades claimed responsibility for that bombing and warned of more to come unless the Lebanese-based, Iranian-backed Shiite militia Hezbollah stops sending fighters to support Syrian government forces.