At least 100 people were killed in a double car bomb attack that targeted the Somali education ministry in the capital Mogadishu on Saturday.
One hundred people were killed and 300 wounded, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said on Sunday after visiting the site of the attack. He said that “both the number of dead and wounded continued to rise.”
The two “simultaneous explosions” occurred on a road along the ministry and caused “several casualties”, said Sadik Dudishe, a Somali police spokesman.
“Ruthless terrorists killed mothers. Some of them died with their children trapped on their backs,” he told a news conference, adding that the attackers were targeting “students and ‘other civilians.’
One of the vehicles packed with explosives managed to enter the ministry compound and triggered shots, another police officer, Ibrahim Mohamed, said. “A few minutes later there was another explosion in the same area,” he added.
regular terrorist attacks
This type of attack, which was not immediately claimed, is generally attributed by Somali authorities to Al-Shabaab jihadist militants who regularly carry out attacks in the capital and major cities of Somalia.
The al-Qaeda-linked Islamist group has been fighting the federal government backed by the international community since 2007. It was expelled from major cities, including Mogadishu in 2011, but remains firmly established in large rural areas, especially in the south of the country. country. Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for last week’s attack on a hotel in the port city of Kismayo that left nine dead and 47 wounded.
In recent months, the Shebab have redoubled their activity in Somalia, a poor and unstable country in the Horn of Africa, with a spectacular thirty-hour assault at the end of August on a Mogadishu hotel.
An “all-out war”
After this attack, which left at least 21 dead and 117 wounded, President Hassan Cheikh Mohamoud promised a “total war” to eliminate the Shebab and called on the population to “move away” from the areas controlled by the Islamists, which would be the target of future attacks. offensive.
In particular, the security forces and local clan militias have launched military operations in the center of the country which, according to the authorities, have allowed them to recover ground from Islamist fighters.
In addition to the Shebab insurgency, Somalia is also threatened by an impending famine, triggered by the most severe drought seen in more than 40 years. Across the country, 7.8 million people, nearly half the population, are affected by the drought, of whom 213,000 are at serious risk of starvation, according to the UN. Without urgent mobilization, a state of famine could be declared before the end of the year.
Source: BFM TV
