27 Jul 2013

Blast in Philippines kills 6

8:57 pm on 27 July 2013

Six people are dead and more than 40 wounded in the Philippines after a bomb struck a restaurant filled with doctors after a national convention.

Police say the improvised explosive device went off around midnight local time at a popular restaurant in the southern port city of Cagayan de Oro.

Most of the victims were doctors and pharmaceutical salesmen who had just attended a national convention of lung-disease specialists at a nearby hotel.

The city police chief declined to speculate on the motive for the bombing, saying an investigation was under way.

Cagayan de Oro is located on the main southern island of Mindanao, which has been blighted by a decades-old rebellion by elements of the large Muslim minority in the mainly Catholic Asian nation.