MOGADISHU, Dec 30, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – The death toll from a massive car bomb
in the Somali capital has risen to 81, a government spokesman said Monday, as
rescue workers pursued their search for the missing.
The bombing Saturday at a busy intersection in Mogadishu was the country’s
deadliest attack in two years.
No one has claimed responsibility, though President Mohamed Abdullahi
Mohamed blamed Islamist group Al-Shabaab, which has regularly carried out car
bombings and other attacks as part of its decade-long bid to topple the
internationally-backed government.
“The overall number of the dead stands at 81 currently. Two more people
died from their injuries,” Ismail Muktar, a spokesman for Somalia’s
information ministry, told AFP Monday.
One of the new fatalities was among the injured who had been evacuated to
Turkey via a Turkish military plane on Sunday, Muktar said.
Muktar said the death toll could climb further as rescue operations entered
a third day.
Around two dozen people were listed as missing after the attack, but 12
have been located – five of them dead — and the rest remain unaccounted for,
he said.
Some 125 people were injured in Saturday’s blast, a caseload that has
overwhelmed health facilities in Mogadishu.
At least 16 of those killed were students from the capital’s private
Banadir University, who had been travelling on a bus when the car bomb
detonated.
The attack was the biggest to hit Somalia since a truck exploded in 2017
near a fuel tanker in Mogadishu, creating a fireball that killed over 500
people.
Al-Shabaab was blamed for that strike too, though it never formally claimed
responsibility — as it often does not do when there is a large amount of
civilian casualties.
The United States military said Sunday it had killed four “terrorists” in
three airstrikes targeting Al-Shabaab.
US Africa Command (AFRICOM) said two militants were killed and two vehicles
destroyed in Qunyo Barrow, while two more militants were killed in Caliyoow
Barrow.
The US regularly carries out airstrikes in Somalia, though the frequency of
such operations has risen sharply this year.
In an April statement AFRICOM said it had killed more than 800 people in
110 strikes in Somalia since April 2017.