World
Death toll in Somalia twin bomb explosions jumps to 300
Death toll in Somalia twin bomb explosions has reached 300 as of Monday. This is the deadliest attack ever in the history of the country since the Islamist militant group al Sahabba began an insurgency in 2007, according to Reuters.Death toll in Somalia twin bomb explosions has reached 300 as of Monday. This is the deadliest attack ever in the history of the country since the Islamist militant group al Sahabba began an insurgency in 2007, according to Reuters.
The death toll has steadily risen since Saturday, when the blasts - for which no organisation had claimed responsibility by Monday morning - struck at two busy junctions in the heart of the city.
“We have confirmed 300 people died in the blast. The death toll will still be higher because some people are still missing,” Abdikadir Abdirahman, the director of the city’s ambulance service, told Reuters on Monday.
Aden Nur, a doctor at the city’s Madina hospital, said they had recorded 258 deaths while Ahmed Ali, a nurse at the nearby Osman Fiqi hospital, told Reuters five bodies had been sent there.
Nur said 160 of the bodies could not be recognised. “(They) were buried by the government yesterday. The others were buried by their relatives. Over a hundred injured were also brought here,” he told Reuters at the hospital.
Some of the injured were being evacuated by air to Turkey for treatment, officials said.
Locals visiting their injured relatives or collecting their bodies filled every available space in Madina hospital.
“My last time to speak with my brother was some minutes before the blast occurred. By then he told me, he was on the way to meet and was passing at K5,” Halima Nur, a local mother, told Reuters, referring to one of the junctions that was struck.
“I am afraid he was among the unrecognized charred bodies that were buried yesterday. I have no hope of getting him alive or dead. But I cannot go home.”