Mogadishu bombings death toll rises to 14
A car suspected by the Somali police to have been used in a bomb attack is seen as residents gather to view the damage at the scene of the attack near Somali Youth League Hotel, known as SYL hotel, in Hamarweyne district in Mogadishu, on Saturday. PHOTO|AFP
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Eighteen people were wounded in Friday’s bombings, two of whom succumbed to their injuries on Saturday, Dr Mohamed Moalim of the Medina hospital in the Somali capital told AFP.
Mogadishu. The death toll rose to 14 on Saturday from massive bomb blasts outside a Mogadishu hotel and a park that was claimed by Somalia’s Shebab Islamists, government and medical sources said.
Eighteen people were wounded in Friday’s bombings, two of whom succumbed to their injuries on Saturday, Dr Mohamed Moalim of the Medina hospital in the Somali capital told AFP.
Police on Friday said at least 12 civilians had been killed.
Two loud explosions went off near the popular SYL hotel and neighbouring Peace Garden followed by more than an hour of automatic gunfire from 7:45 pm (1645 GMT), an AFP correspondent said.
The hotel and park are close to the top-security Villa Somalia complex that houses the presidential palace and the prime minister’s office.
Security Minister Abdirasak Omar Mohamed said the assailants drove a truck packed with 200 kilogrammes (440 pounds) of explosives to the SYL Hotel.
“The security forces managed to stop the truck at a checkpoint (that the driver) tried to forcefully pass and this effort minimised the casualties it could have inflicted if it was to reach the target,” he told a news conference on Saturday.
“It exploded there and a number of people died”.
He said it was the biggest blast to hit the city in recent years, more powerful than an attack last July when a suicide bomber rammed a truck full of explosives into the outer wall of the Jazeera Palace Hotel, killing 17 people.
Abdirahman Ahmed, a witness who was inside the hotel at the time, told AFP several people were slightly wounded, including three security guards, “but the gunmen who tried to storm the hotel were killed outside, they could not manage to enter.(AFP)
