Eight Killed in Grenade Attacks on Black Police in South Africa

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa —  A series of grenade attacks aimed at the homes of black police officers overnight killed eight blacks--six of them the men who intended to throw the grenades--and injured seven others in one of the worst nights of violence against white minority rule, police said today.

In the black tribal homeland of Transkei, authorities said three explosions apparently caused by bombs today knocked out a power station and damaged a water pipe.

The attacks came on the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Freedom Charter, a document calling for a non-racial government that is regarded by many activists as a blueprint for a future South Africa.

Of the eight men who died in the seven hand-grenade explosions, six had lost their right hands, a police spokesman in Pretoria said.

The attacks were aimed at the homes of black policemen, the spokesman said. Increasingly, rioters have attacked other blacks seen as collaborators with the white minority government, although monitoring groups say the majority of deaths have occurred in clashes with police.