- At least 100 dead and 300 injured, the president says
- Deadliest Saturday attack in years
- Al-Shabaab, linked to Al-Qaeda, claims responsibility
MOGADISHU, Oct 30 (Reuters) – Two car bombs that exploded at Somalia’s education ministry next to a busy market intersection killed at least 100 people and wounded 300, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said on Sunday. warning that the death toll could rise.
Saturday’s attack was the deadliest since a truck bomb exploded at the same intersection in October 2017, killing more than 500 people.
Al-Qaeda-linked Islamist group al Shabaab claimed responsibility, saying the ministry was at the center of a “war on minds” that teaches Somali children with a Christian-based curriculum. Among the dead and wounded were members of the security forces, according to the statement emailed to the media.
Al Shabaab, which seeks to overthrow the government and establish its own government based on an extreme interpretation of Islamic law, often carries out attacks in Mogadishu and elsewhere.
The first of the explosions hit the education ministry at around 2pm on Saturday. The second struck minutes later as ambulances arrived and people gathered to help the victims.
Mohamed Moalim, who owns a small restaurant near the intersection, said his wife, Fardawsa Mohamed, a mother of six, rushed to the scene after the first explosion to try to help.
“We couldn’t stop her,” he said. “They killed her in the second blast.”
President Mohamud said some of the injured were in serious condition and the death toll could rise.
“Our people who were massacred … included mothers with their children in their arms, fathers who had medical conditions, students who were sent to study, businessmen who were struggling with the lives of their families,” he said after visit the scene.
The K5 intersection is usually full of people buying and selling everything from food, clothes and water to foreign currency and khat, a soft narcotic leaf. But Sunday was quiet, with emergency workers still cleaning up blood from streets and buildings.
[1/6] A general view shows the scene of an explosion near the education ministry building along K5 street in Mogadishu, Somalia October 29, 2022. REUTERS/Feisal Omar
Somalia’s international partners condemned the attack and sent condolences to the affected families.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement Sunday that the United States “strongly condemns the tragic terrorist attack” and remains “committed to supporting the federal government of Somalia in its fight to prevent such cruel terrorist acts”.
A spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement that he “strongly condemns these heinous attacks and reiterates that the United Nations stands in solidarity with Somalia against violent extremism.”
The Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, tweeted that his organization was ready to support the government in treating the injured.
“These senseless attacks against innocent civilians, including women and children, only serve to remind us of the group’s barbarism towards its own people and reveal the true hypocrisy of its intent,” said the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, in a statement.
The Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, urged the international community to “redouble its efforts to ensure strong international support for Somalia’s institutions in their struggle to defeat terrorist groups”.
Backed by the United States and allied local militias, the president has launched an offensive against the group, although results have been limited.
Abdullahi Aden said his friend, Ilyas Mohamed Warsame, died while traveling in his three-wheeled “tuk tuk” taxi to see relatives before returning home to Britain.
“We recognized the license plate of the tuk tuk, which was now rubbish,” Aden said.
“Exhausted and desperate, we found his body at midnight yesterday at the hospital,” he said. “I can’t get the image out of my head.”
Additional reporting by Sabine Siebold in Berlin; Written by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by William Mallard, Alexandra Zavis, Nick Macfie, Philippa Fletcher and Sandra Maler
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