Bus Blast Kills At Least Seven United Nations Staff In Somalia
APRIL 20, 2015
A bomb tore apart a bus ferrying United Nations staff in Garowe, the capital of Somalia’s semi-autonomous region of Puntland on Monday, killing at least 7 international and local staff in a rare attack in the region on international organisations staff, Horseed Media reports.
The explosion happened an area very close to the heavily fortified UN Compound in the stable city, in the early morning hours.
‘’ The sound of the explosion was huge and scary…. Security forces arrived at the scene immediately,’’ said one of the witnesses, who lives in a close neighbourhood.
Police officials are yet to confirm the kind of the blast which there are conflicting a report claiming it was planted in the bus.
Among the dead are foreign staff including two Kenyans, multiple sources told Horseed Media.
No group has immediately claimed the responsibility of the attack.
In April last year, two UNODC foreign staff were killed by a gunman in Galkayo airport, which is some 750-kilometers northern of Somali Capital, Mogadishu.
Also three soldiers from the African Union force were killed fighting Somalia's Shebab militants yesterday.
The African Union has condemned the latest in a series of attacks by the Islamists.
AU envoy to Somalia Maman Sidikou condemned "the cowardly ambush" on a convoy of troops yesterday in southern Somalia's Lower Shabelle district, between the small settlements of Lego and Balidogle.
"Our gallant soldiers put up a spirited fight, during which three of them lost their lives, while others sustained injuries," Sidikou said in a statement.
Shebab spokesman Abdulaziz Abu Musab has claimed the attack, allegedly boasting that five AU soldiers had been killed and vehicles destroyed.
He says the soldiers were from Burundi, but the AU force in Somalia, AMISOM, did not give details of their nationality.
Troops from Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda are also in the AMISOM force.
The Shebab rebels are fighting to overthrow Somalia's internationally backed government.
They have also carried out revenge attacks across the wider region against countries which contribute troops to AMISOM, particularly in neighbouring Kenya.
But Sidikou says the fight against the Islamists would continue.
"The blood of our brothers will not be shed in vain," Sidikou said.
Shebab attacks in Somalia have targeted key government and security sites in an apparent bid to discredit claims by the authorities and AU troops that they are winning the war.
On Saturday, Shebab gunmen shot dead a local lawmaker, Adan Haji Hussein, an MP in the semi-autonomous northern Puntland region.
On April 2, Shebab gunmen attacked a university in Kenya's northeastern town of Garissa, lining up non-Muslim students for execution and killing 148 people, in their worst ever attack.
While the Shebab emerged as a Somali Islamist group in 2006 in Mogadishu, they have recruited across the wider region.
A bomb tore apart a bus ferrying United Nations staff in Garowe, the capital of Somalia’s semi-autonomous region of Puntland on Monday, killing at least 7 international and local staff in a rare attack in the region on international organisations staff, Horseed Media reports.
The explosion happened an area very close to the heavily fortified UN Compound in the stable city, in the early morning hours.
‘’ The sound of the explosion was huge and scary…. Security forces arrived at the scene immediately,’’ said one of the witnesses, who lives in a close neighbourhood.
Police officials are yet to confirm the kind of the blast which there are conflicting a report claiming it was planted in the bus.
Among the dead are foreign staff including two Kenyans, multiple sources told Horseed Media.
No group has immediately claimed the responsibility of the attack.
In April last year, two UNODC foreign staff were killed by a gunman in Galkayo airport, which is some 750-kilometers northern of Somali Capital, Mogadishu.
Also three soldiers from the African Union force were killed fighting Somalia's Shebab militants yesterday.
The African Union has condemned the latest in a series of attacks by the Islamists.
AU envoy to Somalia Maman Sidikou condemned "the cowardly ambush" on a convoy of troops yesterday in southern Somalia's Lower Shabelle district, between the small settlements of Lego and Balidogle.
"Our gallant soldiers put up a spirited fight, during which three of them lost their lives, while others sustained injuries," Sidikou said in a statement.
Shebab spokesman Abdulaziz Abu Musab has claimed the attack, allegedly boasting that five AU soldiers had been killed and vehicles destroyed.
He says the soldiers were from Burundi, but the AU force in Somalia, AMISOM, did not give details of their nationality.
Troops from Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda are also in the AMISOM force.
The Shebab rebels are fighting to overthrow Somalia's internationally backed government.
They have also carried out revenge attacks across the wider region against countries which contribute troops to AMISOM, particularly in neighbouring Kenya.
But Sidikou says the fight against the Islamists would continue.
"The blood of our brothers will not be shed in vain," Sidikou said.
Shebab attacks in Somalia have targeted key government and security sites in an apparent bid to discredit claims by the authorities and AU troops that they are winning the war.
On Saturday, Shebab gunmen shot dead a local lawmaker, Adan Haji Hussein, an MP in the semi-autonomous northern Puntland region.
On April 2, Shebab gunmen attacked a university in Kenya's northeastern town of Garissa, lining up non-Muslim students for execution and killing 148 people, in their worst ever attack.
While the Shebab emerged as a Somali Islamist group in 2006 in Mogadishu, they have recruited across the wider region.
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