MOGADISHU, Oct 13, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – At least 16 people were killed in
Somalia on Saturday in suicide bombings that targeted a restaurant and coffee
shop, police said.
Suicide bombers walked into the two locations in the southwestern city of
Baidoa and detonated their vests within minutes of each other, according to
witnesses.
The blasts came a day before the first anniversary of a truck bombing that
left more than 500 dead in Mogadishu, the worst ever attack in Somalia which
was blamed on Islamist group Al-Shabaab.
“The number of the dead we have confirmed from the two blasts is 16 and
nearly twenty others were wounded some of them seriously, nine people died in
the second blast and seven in the first,” said Abudulahi Mohamed, a police
official in Baidoa.
“The targeted locations are populated by innocent civilians so that all of
the victims were civilians, and the number of the dead can increase anytime
because of the wounded,” he added.
Mohamed Adam, another police official, gave the same toll.
“I saw fifteen dead bodies at the hospital all of them collected from the
scene of the attacks, many worried people poured into the hospital looking
for their relatives” Abdi Hassan, a relative of a patient who was wounded in
the blast.
Shabaab, an Al-Qaeda affiliate, is fighting to overthrow the
internationally backed Somali government in Mogadishu.
The Shabaab were forced out of the capital by African Union troops in 2011
but still control parts of the countryside and carry out attacks against
government, military and civilian targets seemingly at will in Mogadishu and
regional towns.