Radical Al-Shabaab Islamists claimed responsibility for the attack, the deadliest in five years, saying their fighters had targeted the Ministry of Education. The attack also left at least 300 injured.
Two vehicle bombs exploded Saturday on a busy thoroughfare within minutes of each other. The explosions, which blew the windows of neighboring buildings, overwhelmed hospitals and clinics in this country with a health system ravaged by decades of conflict.
“We call on the international community, the Somali brothers and the other brothers (…) to send doctors to Somalia to help the hospitals to treat the wounded,” President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said on Sunday, stressing that the number of victims could still increase.
“We cannot airlift all this number of wounded (…). We ask anyone who can send us help to do so”, continued the head of state, after having himself given his blood.
– “In war” –
Somalia and “these terrorists are at war”, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud also said. For the Head of State, this double attack shows that the Al-Shabaab Islamists have “lost and (…) are unable to counter the army, so they sneaked in to massacre innocent civilians”.
The attack took place at the same crossroads which had already been hit by the most serious attack ever committed in Somalia: 512 people were killed on October 14, 2017 by the explosion of a truck packed with explosives.
The international community quickly condemned the double attack. The UN mission in Somalia pledged to stand “resolutely with all Somalis against terrorism” and Washington vilified a “hateful” attack and assured the Somali authorities of their “support in the fight to prevent such ruthless terrorist attacks”.
The Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist movement has been fighting the federal government backed by the international community since 2007. It was driven out of Mogadishu in 2011 but remains firmly established in large rural areas, particularly in the south of the country, and regularly carries out attacks in the capital and major cities of Somalia.
In recent months, the Shebab have redoubled their activity in Somalia, a poor and unstable country in the Horn of Africa, with in particular a spectacular assault, lasting around thirty hours, at the end of August on a hotel in Mogadishu.
After this attack which left at least 21 dead and 117 injured, President Hassan Cheikh Mohamoud promised a “total war” to eliminate the Shebab and called on the population to “stay away” from areas controlled by the Islamists who would be targeted by future offensives.
The radical Shebab Islamists also claimed responsibility for the attack on a hotel in Kismayo, in the south of the country, on October 23, which left 9 dead and 47 injured.
The security forces and local clan militias have notably launched military operations in the center of the country, which, according to the authorities, have made it possible to regain ground from Islamist fighters.
In addition to the Shebab insurgency, Somalia is also threatened by an imminent famine, caused by the most severe drought observed for more than 40 years.
