Somalia: 100 killed, over 300 injured in a bomb blast in Mogadishu

At least 100 people were killed and more than 300 were injured in two separate car explosions in the Somalia capital Mogadishu. The accident happened in two cars outside the Ministry of Education on Saturday. The President of the country has given this information in a statement early on Sunday. Somalia's President Hassan Shaikh told local Somali cable TV that 100 people had died and more than 300 were injured in the blast. Many of the injured are in critical condition.

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamed, after visiting the site of the blast, said among those killed were mothers with their children in their arms, ailing fathers, students sent to study, and businessmen struggling with their family's lives. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. The president, however, blamed the Islamic group al-Shabaab. Al-Shabaab generally avoids taking responsibility for attacks that result in large numbers of casualties.

Mohamed said the number of victims could rise. He had directed the government to provide immediate medical aid to the injured. Some of them were in critical condition. According to local media reports, two car bombings targeted the building of Somalia's Ministry of Education.

The first explosion occurred near a busy junction in Mogadishu at the Ministry of Education. The second incident happened when an ambulance arrived and people gathered to help the victims. The explosion was so powerful that it broke the surrounding windows.

The attack took place at the site where Somalia's biggest bombing took place, in which more than 500 people were killed in the same month in 2017. In that explosion, a truck bomb exploded outside a busy hotel at the K5 intersection adjacent to government offices.