Manhunt underway after bomb blast wounds several in Monaco

Police in Monaco and neighboring France were searching for a man suspected of detonating a makeshift bomb at a residential building near the French border, after an explosion around 9 p.m. local time on Monday left several people wounded in the center of the Mediterranean principality. Christophe Mirmand, Monaco’s minister of state, said two victims suffered life-threatening injuries.

Monaco officials described the blast as deliberate or malicious, and said the device apparently contained bolts and buckshot, indicating an intent to maximize shrapnel injuries. Mirmand said that, to his knowledge, it was the first such act in the principality’s history, a stark breach for a city-state better known for wealth, luxury tourism and a heavy security presence than for improvised explosive attacks.

The prosecutor’s office said French authorities were involved in the response, underlining how quickly a security emergency in Monaco becomes a cross-border operation. The blast happened at a residential building near the frontier, where investigators were trying to piece together how the suspect moved into the area and whether anyone helped him flee after the explosion.

Surveillance images showed a man dropping a backpack at the entrance shortly before the blast, a detail that could prove central to the manhunt. Officials have not publicly identified the suspect or given a motive, but the deliberate nature of the attack has raised immediate questions about target selection and whether the attack was personal, criminal or politically motivated.

Mirmand said the prosecutor was due to brief the public on Tuesday, signaling that investigators expected to move quickly as doctors treated the wounded and police widened the search. For Monaco, a place that relies on order, visibility and elite mobility, the blast was more than a violent crime. It exposed how a single attack can shake confidence in one of Europe’s most tightly controlled jurisdictions and force France and Monaco to respond together on the same stretch of border.