(Mogadishu) Relatives of those missing in the attack on a hotel in Mogadishu by radical Islamists Al-Shabaab, which killed at least 21 civilians, are awaiting news from relatives on Sunday after a siege of a thirty hours.
Posted at 7:29
Dozens of people were also injured in the gun and bomb attack at the Hayat hotel, stormed Friday evening by Islamists shebab, a group affiliated with Al-Qaeda.
Security forces put an end to the attack overnight from Saturday to Sunday, announcing the death of all the assailants.
Rescuers were trying to find possible survivors among the rubble on Sunday morning, AFP journalists noted, while the hotel’s gated areas were quiet and experts were working to detect possible explosives. .
The hotel suffered heavy damage during the face-off between Al-Shabaab and security forces, with parts of the building collapsing.
PHOTO HASSAN ALI ELMI, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
This attack, claimed by the shebab, is the most serious in Mogadishu since the entry into office of the new president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in June, after months of political instability. It highlights the challenge posed to him by the Islamist insurrection, which has lasted for 15 years against the federal government.
Concerns
Police Commissioner Abdi Hassan Mohamed Hijar told reporters on Sunday that “106 people, including women and children”, were rescued by security forces during the siege that ended around midnight.
“The victims were affected mainly in the first hours of the attack,” he added, without giving a new toll of the dead and injured. He said the Minister of Health would speak to reporters later in the day.
Shebab spokesman Abdiaziz Abu-Musab told their station, Radio Andalus, on Saturday that the group had “inflicted heavy losses” on security forces.
According to a woman witness, Hayat Ali, three children from the same family, aged four to seven, were found by the security forces, in a state of shock, hiding in the hotel toilets.
On Sunday morning, dozens of people looking for news of their relatives were gathered in the street leading to the hotel, but were blocked from a distance by the security forces.
Muktar Adan, a businessman whose brother was at the hotel on Friday night, told AFP he was waiting for permission to approach the establishment. “My brother was in the hotel when we last heard from him, but his phone is off now and we don’t know what to expect,” he said.
Said Nurow explains to him that he is worried about his friend who was staying in the hotel. ” I hope […] that he is alive, he was staying at the hotel according to the latest information received from his sister,” he told AFP.
The hotel, where many people were staying at the time of the attack, was a popular meeting place for government officials.
Somalia’s allies, including the US, UK and Turkey, as well as the UN, strongly condemned the attack.
“We express our sincere condolences to the families who lost loved ones, wish a full recovery to the injured, and commend the Somali security forces,” the US State Department said.
Intensified attacks
Al-Shabaab were driven out of Somalia’s main cities, including Mogadishu in 2011, but remain entrenched in large rural areas. In recent months, they have intensified their attacks.
On Wednesday, the American army announced that it had killed in an airstrike 13 Shebab militiamen who were attacking soldiers of the Somali regular forces in a remote area of this country in the Horn of Africa.
In May, US President Joe Biden decided to re-establish a military presence in Somalia to fight the Shebab there, approving a request from the Pentagon which deemed the rotation system decided by his predecessor Donald Trump at the end of his term too risky and ineffective. mandate.
Somalia’s new president Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud said last month that a military approach is insufficient to end the Al-Shabaab insurgency.
In early August, Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre announced the appointment of a former Al-Shabaab leader, turned politician, as Minister of Religious Affairs. Muktar Robow, alias Abu Mansour, publicly defected in August 2017 from the movement he helped found.