Nairobi - Twin car bombs ripped through a crowd of people outside Somalia's education ministry, killing at least 100 people and injuring 300, the country's president said on Sunday. It was the highest civilian death toll from a single attack in five years.
The day after the Saturday attack, weeping men and women wandered through the twisted wreckage of buildings, seeking missing family members.
The people who were killed included "mothers carrying children, fathers seeking medical treatment, students going to study and businessmen working to feed their families," President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said in a televised statement early on Sunday.
The attack comes as a fiercely-fought offensive by resurgent clan militias backed by the central government has clawed back territory in central Somalia from the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab insurgency.
On Sunday, the government news agency announced that the military had killed around 100 al-Shabaab fighters as soldiers captured territory about 100km north-east of the capital.
Mohamud blamed al-Shabaab in his Sunday address, adding: "These are men who could not face our army on the battlefield and have resorted to attacking from the rear to inflict harm on innocent civilians."
Al-Shabaab has not publicly claimed responsibility for Saturday's attack, but it is the only militant group that frequently carries out large bombings in Somalia. It often does not claim attacks with large numbers of civilian casualties.
"No surprise Al-Shabaab more lethal now. Its back is to the wall. It has lost more territory in 4 months than it has in 5 years. It is facing most serious clan revolt ever. Its economic empire under strain," tweeted Rashied Abdi, the chief analyst at the Nairobi-based Sahan Research think tank. "Brace. It will get worse before it gets better."
Abdulkadir Adan, who runs the capital's only free ambulance service, said there were two blasts – one that left the street strewn with dead and injured people screaming for help, and another that targeted the first responders. One of his paramedics and a driver were caught in the second blast, he said.
"He (the paramedic) had loaded three people into the back of the ambulance and was trying to start it," he said. "The ambulance was completely destroyed. It was full of blood."
The paramedic and driver were injured, he said, and he did not think the patients survived.
The attack took place in the same month and in the same place as a truck bomb that killed more than 500 civilians in 2017, sparking widespread public fury.
Abdulkadir Mohamed Abdulle was one of three journalists who arrived to report on the first blast and were caught in the second.
"Women, children, workers in the restaurant – all the parts of human beings were scattered. You can't imagine," he said.
As his colleagues gathered amid the blood and shattered glass, the second bomb detonated, killing one journalist and wounding two others. It severed two of Abdulle's fingers and peppered him with shrapnel.
Abdulle, too, had been caught up in the truck bombing five years ago. His colleague was killed and he was injured so badly that he had to be flown to Turkey for treatment.
somalia