At least five people are dead and 23 others were injured after a huge explosion rocked the Somali capital Mogadishu early on Thursday, officials and a witness said.
“For now, we know that five people are dead and 23 others (were) injured,” Abdikadir Abdirahman, director of the Aamin ambulance service, told Reuters.
The Somali Islamist group al Shabaab, which carried out the attack, was targeting a passing U.N. convoy, said Abdiasis Abu Musab, the group’s military operations spokesman.
The blast, which occurred near the K4 junction in the heart of Mogadishu, was so loud that it toppled the walls of the nearby Mucassar Primary and Secondary School.
“We were shaken by the pressure of the explosion and then deafened by the gunfire that followed,” said Mohamed Hussein, a nurse at the nearby Osman Hospital. He added that he was pulled from the rubble of a collapsed ceiling.
“The walls of our hospital collapsed. Across the street from us, there is a school that also collapsed. I don’t know how many people died,” he said. Al Shabaab has been fighting for years against Somalia’s central government to establish its own regime based on its strict interpretation of sharia law.
The group frequently commits bombings and armed attacks in Somalia and elsewhere in its war against the Somali army and the African Union-mandated AMISOM force that helps defend the central government.