At least 100 people, including children, were killed in a double car bomb attack on Saturday on a busy thoroughfare in the center of the capital Mogadishu, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said on Sunday (October 30th). A total of 300 injured were also recorded. These two assessments could increase.
Two cars packed with explosives exploded within minutes of each other in the afternoon near the busy Zobe junction, followed by gunfire in an attack targeting Somalia’s education ministry. The explosions shattered windows of nearby buildings, sending shrapnel and plumes of smoke and dust into the air.
The attack took place at the same junction where a truck had exploded on October 14, 2017, killing 512 people and injuring more than 290. “It’s not fair. God willing, they won’t have the ability to perpetrate a new [attentat, comme celui de Zobe]“, lambasted Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, in reference to the jihadists of the Shebab group.
This type of attack – which was not immediately claimed – is generally attributed by the Somali authorities to Al-Shabaab jihadist militants who regularly carry out attacks in the capital and major cities of Somalia.
The Islamist group, linked to Al-Qaeda, has been fighting the federal government supported by the international community since 2007. It was driven out of the main cities – including Mogadishu in 2011 – but remains firmly established in large rural areas, especially in the south of the country.
In recent months, the Shebab have redoubled their activity in Somalia, a poor and unstable country in the Horn of Africa, with in particular a spectacular assault, lasting around thirty hours, at the end of August on a hotel in Mogadishu.
In addition to the Shebab insurgency, Somalia is also threatened by an imminent famine, caused by the most severe drought observed for more than 40 years.