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Somalia’s government blamed the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab extremist group for “unspeakable horror” of truck bomb blast as rescue workers search for survivors trapped under the rubble of the largely destroyed Safari Hotel.
The most powerful bomb blast ever witnessed in Somalia’s capital killed at least 231 people with more than 275 injured, a senator said Sunday, making it the deadliest single attack in this Horn of Africa nation. The toll could continue to rise.
Two car bombs in separate parts of Somalia’s capital Mogadishu have killed at least 50 people and injured more than 80 others.
The first explosion on Saturday in the city’s K5 Junction area, which is lined with government offices, hotels, and restaurants, destroyed several buildings and set dozens of vehicles on fire.
Islamist militants attacked a checkpoint in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region, killing at least five people in the early hours of Monday, police said.
The fighters from the al-Shabaab group then ambushed officers rushing in to help colleagues on the outskirts of the city of Bosaso, police Captain Abdifatah Mohamed said.
Two United Nations peacekeepers have been killed and several injured in an attack on their base in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a UN spokesperson said.
“The injured peacekeepers have been evacuated to Goma for medical assistance,” said spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric at the regular news briefing at UN Headquarters, in New York.
Fighting today in the east Tripoli district of Arada, near Suq Al-Juma, is reported to have left four people dead and 17 others injured, seven of them seriously.
The cause of the clashes, which resulted in locals fleeing the streets and forced to remain indoors, is unclear. According to reports, it was a continuation of fighting that started last night in Ain Zara district further south between the members of the 42nd Battalion and the Abdul Raouf Al-Jabari Brigade. The former are based in Ain Zara, the latter in Arada. Both are said to have been legalised by the Presidency Council’s interior ministry.
More than 90 people have been killed in weeks of fighting between Libyan militias in the city of Sabratha.
The conflict erupted in part as an unexpected consequence of Europe’s efforts to halt migrants crossing the Mediterranean.
Around 100 people have been killed and dozens of others injured since renewed fighting broke out Sunday between government armed forces and rebels loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar, an army spokesman said Wednesday.
The clashes took place in a volatile northeastern part of the country with both sides claiming victory, as the east African regional bloc — Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an economic bloc that helped brokered a pact between the warring sides — attempts to restart talks aimed at bringing estranged groups to the negotiating table.