Bulldozers continue to clear the rubble in search of victims. On Monday, the Somali president launched an appeal to the international community to come to the aid of the injured in the double car bomb attack which killed 100 people on Saturday in the capital Mogadishu. 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.
Dispatch of doctors
Somalia, a country in the Horn of Africa, has been plunged into chaos since the fall of the Siad Barre regime in 1991. “We call on the international community, the Somali brothers and the other brothers (…) to send doctors to Somalia to help hospitals 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 given his blood himself. Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre has ordered schools closed so students can donate blood.
An already infamous crossroads
Somalia and “these terrorists are at war,” President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud also said. For the Head of State, this double attack shows that the Shebab 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.
Ali Yare Ali, a local official in Mogadishu, told reporters that between 7 and 9 bodies could still be found under the debris. 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”.