PRAGUE, Aug 1 (AFP) - Eighteen people including one child were slightly injured by a grenade that went off in a suspected criminal attack in central Prague on Sunday, the city's emergency services said.
The grenade was thrown under a car parked in front of the Casino Royal on Na Prikope pedestrian precinct, just off Wenceslas Square which was packed with tourists.
Most of those injured were sitting nearby on the garden terrace of the casino's restaurant.
"All were slightly injured by shrapnel or broken glass from the explosion. They were taken to nearby hospitals and no one is expected to be kept" overnight, emergency services' spokesman Marek Uhlir told AFP.
Five British nationals, four Irish, three Americans, two Cypriots, two Czechs, one Bulgarian and one Slovak were injured in the blast.
The injured child was an eight-year-old American girl.
"The scene was one of chaos because people did not know what was happening," said Uhlir.
He said once alerted of the blast the city had activated its civil emergency plan as it could not be immediately ruled out that it was a terrorist attack.
More than 12 ambulances, together with police, fire fighters and explosives experts, were on the scene.
Police had closed off the area around the blast to search for evidence, but said they had no immediate leads on the young man who witnesses said threw the grenade and fled the scene.
They refused to comment on possible motives for the attack.