Mogadishu: Days after a car bombing and gunfire killed nine people in the Somalian city of Kismayu, two separate cars exploded in the capital city of Mogadishu on Saturday afternoon. Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh told local Somali cable TV that the death toll in the blast so far is around 100 and more than 300 have been injured. The condition of many of the injured remains critical.
According to local media reports, two car bombings targeted the building of Somalia’s Ministry of Education. Reuters quoted a local citizen as saying, “Two car bombs hit the Education Ministry building on the side of K5 Street.” A police officer guarding the ministry, who named himself Hassan, told Reuters he had exploded Soon after, at least 12 bodies were seen and more than 20 people were seriously injured.
No group has taken responsibility for Saturday’s attack, but the Qaeda-linked group Al Shabab has previously carried out similar attacks in the capital. The group has particularly ramped up its attacks on civilian and government organizations after the newly elected Somali president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, declared an all-out offensive on the group.
A Reuters journalist near the blast site said the two explosions occurred within minutes of each other and smashed windows in the vicinity. Blood from victims of the blasts covered the tarmac just outside the building, he said. Moments after the blasts a large plume of smoke rose over the site.
“The second blast burnt our ambulance as we came to transport the casualties from the first blast,” Abdikadir Abdirahman of the Aamin Ambulance Service told Reuters. A driver and a first aid worker had been injured in the blast,
The attack took place at the same point where Somalia’s largest bombing took place in the same month in 2017.
