Two car bombs exploded on Saturday at a busy junction in the capital of Somalia, close to important government buildings, inflicting “scores of civilian victims,” including children, according to national police. Despite worries that there may be many more, one hospital employee tallied at least 30 bodies.
When the president, prime minister, and other senior officials met to discuss stepping up efforts to confront violent extremism, particularly by the al-Qaida-affiliated al-Shabab organisation that frequently attacks the city, the attack in Mogadishu took place. Additionally, it happened five years after a similar large explosion left over 500 dead in the same place.
No one immediately took blame. Al-Shabab hardly ever claims attacks that result in the deaths of numerous civilians, like in the 2017 explosion. Al-Shabab was specifically accused for the incident by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who described it as “cruel and cowardly.”
A volunteer at the Medina hospital, Hassan Osman, said “out of the total of at least 30 dead people brought to the hospital, the majority of them are women. I have seen this with my own eyes.” At the hospital and elsewhere, frantic relatives peeked under plastic sheeting and into body bags, looking for loved ones.
The Aamin ambulance service said they had collected at least 35 wounded. One ambulance responding to the first attack was destroyed by the second blast, director Abdulkadir Adan added in a tweet.
“I was 100 meters away when the second blast occurred,” witness Abdirazak Hassan said. “I couldn’t count the bodies on the ground due to the (number of) fatalities.” He said the first blast hit the perimeter wall of the education ministry, where street vendors and money changers were located.
The second explosion, according to an Associated Press reporter on the site, happened during noon in front of a busy restaurant. In a location with several restaurants and hotels, the explosions destroyed tuk-tuks and other cars. He reported seeing “several” bodies, many of which he claimed to be civilians using public transportation.
The Somali Journalists Syndicate, citing colleagues and police, said one journalist was killed and two others wounded by the second blast while rushing to the scene of the first.
The incident took place at the same intersection where a sizable al-Shabab vehicle explosion in 2017 left more than 500 people dead.
The government of Somalia has been waging a prominent new effort against the terrorist group that the US has dubbed one of al-deadliest Qaida’s outfits. The extremists, who have recently been the target of numerous U.S. bombings and control sizable portions of central and southern Somalia, have been described by the president as being in “total war.”
In retaliation, the radicals have murdered key clan chiefs, ostensibly in a bid to discourage support for that government offensive.
On Saturday, Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre said the attack would not dampen the public uprising against al-Shabab, and he and the president expressed the government’s determination to wipe out the extremist group.