MOGADISHU— Somalia’s president has issued an urgent plea for international help for wounded victims of devastating car bombings at the weekend that claimed the lives of 100 people.
Bulldozers were still clearing the blast site in the capital Mogadishu on Monday in the hunt for bodies feared trapped under the rubble.
Saturday’s attack, which also wounded more than 300 people, was claimed by the Al-Shabaab group and was the deadliest in the fragile Horn of Africa nation in five years.
“We appeal for the international community, Somali brothers, and other Muslim brothers and or partners to send doctors to Somalia to help the hospitals treat the wounded people,” President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said in a statement.
He warned that the death toll could rise, as ill-equipped hospitals were swamped.
“We cannot airlift all these numbers of wounded people… anyone who can send us (help) we request to send us,” said Mohamud.
Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre has ordered schools closed so that students can take part in a national blood donation drive.
Mohamud said he himself was among several hundred people who had donated blood to hospitals for the victims.
The World Health Organization said it was ready to help the government treat the wounded and provide trauma care.
Al-Shabaab group, linked to Al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the attack in which two cars packed with explosives blew up minutes apart near the city’s busy Zobe intersection, followed by gunfire. It said it had targeted the country’s ministry of education.
The attack took place at the same junction where a truck packed with explosives blew up on Oct 14, 2017, killing 512 people and injuring more than 290, the deadliest attack in Somalia.
Mohamud called on all Somalis to show solidarity and support those affected by the attack.
“We must get united in providing assistance to the families, children and parents of those who were martyred,” he said, lauding donations of water, food and clothes to survivors.
Al-Shabaab fighters have stepped up their attacks in Somalia since Mohamud was elected in May and vowed an “all-out-war” on the militants.
The insurgents have been seeking to overthrow the fragile foreign-backed government in Mogadishu for about 15 years.
They were driven out of the capital in 2011 by an African Union force but the group still controls swathes of countryside and continues to wage deadly strikes on civilian, political and military targets.
Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK