Police hunt suspect after Monaco explosion injures three

Police in Monaco and neighbouring France are searching for a man suspected of planting a makeshift explosive device that wounded three people, two of them critically, in a residential building in the wealthy Mediterranean principality.

The blast struck at about 9 p.m. local time Monday on Rue Révérend Père Louis Frolla, near the French border, after a bag or package was left at the building, officials and French media reported. Monaco’s public prosecutor, Stephane Thibault, said a suspect left the item in the lobby before leaving.

French newspaper Le Figaro reported that surveillance video showed a man dropping a backpack at the entrance of a residential building shortly before the explosion. An aide to French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said police were working “to find the perpetrator, who has fled.”

Monaco’s Minister of State Christophe Mirmand initially told AFP the blast was “very likely an attack,” but later described it as a “deliberate explosion,” Al Jazeera reported. He said the device appeared to contain bolts and buckshot or pellets.

A couple in their 50s or 60s suffered life-threatening injuries, while a 13-year-old who was “very likely related to the couple” was less seriously hurt, Mirmand said. Officials did not release the victims’ identities.

According to AFP, cited by Al Jazeera, Ukrainian oligarch Vadym Yermolaiev was among those wounded. A source close to the investigation, who was not named, told AFP that one of the injured was Yermolaiev, described as a multimillionaire Monaco resident. Al Jazeera reported that he has been under sanctions from Kyiv since December 2023, which Ukrainian security services reportedly said were linked to his alcohol business activity in Russian-occupied Crimea.

“This is the first time in history, to my knowledge, that such an act has taken place in the principality,” Mirmand said.

Prince Albert II called the incident a “heinous crime” and “a shock to the entire Monegasque community.”

Police and emergency personnel were deployed to the scene after the explosion. An AFP photographer reported a heavy police presence, with access to the area cordoned off and a helicopter circling overhead.

Monaco, a micro-state on the French Riviera, is known as a haven for billionaires and luxury yachts. Authorities have not publicly identified a motive in the explosion.