Truck bomb’s ‘unspeakable horrors’
SOMALIA: The most powerful bomb blast witnessed in Somalia’s capital killed 276 people with about 300 others injured, the country’s information minister said yesterday, making it the deadliest single attack in the Horn of Africa nation. The toll was expected to rise.
In a tweet, Abdirahman Osman called the attack ‘‘barbaric’' and said countries, including Turkey and Kenya, had already offered to send medical aid. Hospitals were overwhelmed a day after a truck bomb targeted a crowded street near key government ministries, including foreign affairs.
As angry protesters gathered near the scene of the attack, Somalia’s government blamed the al Qaeda-linked al-Shabab extremist group for what it called a ‘‘national disaster’'. However, Africa’s deadliest Islamic extremist group, which often targets highprofile areas of the capital, had yet to comment.
Al-Shabab earlier this year vowed to step up attacks after both the Trump administration and Somalia’s recently elected president announced new military efforts against the group. The Mogadishu bombing is one of the deadliest attacks in sub-Saharan Africa, larger than the Garissa University attack in Kenya in 2015 and the US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
Doctors at Mogadishu hospitals struggled to assist badly wounded victims, many burned beyond recognition. ‘‘This is really horrendous, unlike any other time in the past,’' said Dr Mohamed Yusuf, the director of Medina hospital.
Inside, bleary-eyed nurses transported a man whose legs had been blown off. He waited as surgeons attended to another badly injured patient. Exhausted doctors struggled to keep their eyes open, while screams from victims and newly bereaved families echoed through the halls.
‘‘Nearly all of the wounded victims have serious wounds,’' said nurse Samir Abdi. ‘‘Unspeakable horrors.’' The smell of blood was strong.
The country’s Somali-American leader, President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, declared three days of mourning and joined thousands of people who responded to a desperate plea by hospitals to donate blood.
The US Africa Command said US forces had not been asked to provide aid. A spokesman said that first responders and local enforcement would handle the response and ‘‘the US would offer assistance if and when a request was made’'. –