Al-Shabab bombing near Mogadishu school kills at least 8

Seventeen others, including schoolchildren, wounded in latest attack to hit Somalia’s capital.

An injured student is assisted from the scene after a car exploded in a suicide attack near Mucassar primary and secondary school in Hodan district of Mogadishu, Somalia [Feisal Omar/Reuters]

At least eight people have been killed and 17 injured, including schoolchildren, in a car bombing in Somalia’s capital, officials and witnesses said.

The bombing was claimed by the armed group al-Shabab in the early hours of Thursday, who said it intended to strike a United Nations security convoy passing near a school in Mogadishu.

It was not immediately clear if any UN personnel were among the casualties.

A column of smoke rose over the Mocaasir Primary and Secondary School, where classroom ceilings crashed onto students’ desks, witnesses said.

“Schools – and any other place where children congregate – should at all times be safe for children,” Mohamed Malick Fall, regional director for eastern and southern Africa for the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, said in a statement, citing reports that at least 13 schoolchildren and four school staff were wounded.

Abdisalan Omar Ibrahim, 13, said the sound of the blast came as he was writing the heading of a history lesson his teacher had begun at the chalkboard. The sound was followed by the screams of his classmates as parts of the building fell on them.

“A brick hit me in the head and blood was gushing onto my uniform,” he said. He and the other wounded students were taken to hospital and all but one were discharged.

Aamin Ambulance service evacuated at least 23 people who were injured in the blast, Abdikadir Abdirahman, the director of the service, told Reuters news agency.

Mohamed Hussein, a nurse at the nearby Osman Hospital, said he had been pulled from the rubble of a collapsed ceiling.

“Our hospital walls collapsed. Opposite us is a school that also collapsed. I do not know how many died,” he said.

He told Reuters that they “were shaken by the blast pressure, then deafened by the gunfire that followed”.

The blast collapsed the walls of nearby schools and left cars mangled [Farah Abdi Warsameh/AP Photo]

Al-Shabab has been fighting Somalia’s central government for years to establish its own rule based on its strict interpretation of Islamic law.

The group frequently carries out bombings and gun assaults in Somalia and elsewhere in its war against the Somalia military and the African Union-mandated AMISOM force that supports the government.

The al-Qaeda-linked armed group said in a statement carried by its Andalus radio that Thursday’s attack targeted Western officials being escorted by the peacekeeping convoy.

The peacekeeping force was meant to withdraw from the country, but its mission could be extended amid concerns that Somali forces are not ready to assume responsibility for security.

Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies