Warning
'DEVASTATING'
Mogadishu bombing – 79 dead including kids as huge truck bomb rips through Somali capital
AT LEAST 79 people - including children - have been slaughtered after a truck bomb exploded at a busy security checkpoint in Somalia.
The blast in the capital Mogadishu yesterday morning targeted a tax collection centre during rush hour, said Captain Mohamed Hussein.
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The dead included many students travelling on a bus and two Turkish brothers, officials said.
A large black plume of smoke rose above the city in what was the deadliest attack in Mogadishu since a 2017 bombing which killed hundreds, reports the Associated Press.
A Somali MP also tweeted that the death toll had spiralled to more than 90, including 17 cops - however that number has since been downgraded to 79.
At least 125 people were wounded, Aamin Ambulance service director Abdiqadir Abdulrahman said, and hundreds of locals donated blood in response to desperate appeals.
President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed condemned the attack as a “heinous act of terror" and blamed the local al-Shabab extremist group.
The warped terror cult linked to al-Qaida was pushed out of Mogadishu several years ago but continues to target high-profile areas such as checkpoints and hotels in the seaside city.
Kids were injured by the massive truck bomb, along with university students, Captain Hussein said.
All I could see was scattered dead bodies, and some of them burned beyond recognition.
Truck bomb survivor, Sakariye Abdukadir
Gruesome photos of the scene show the twisted metal of burnt-out vehicles - some covered in blood - in the street.
Somalia's police chief General Abdi Hassan Hijar said the truck detonated after police at the checkpoint blocked it from proceeding into the city.
An adviser to the capital, Hodan Ali, told : "There are many casualties as well, so the death toll is expected to rise."
Sakariye Abdukadir - who witnessed the explosion - said it had "destroyed several of my car windows.
"All I could see was scattered dead bodies... amid the blast, and some of them burned beyond recognition."
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Sabdow Ali, 55, who lives nearby, told Reuters that he had left his house after hearing the explosion and counted at least 13 people dead.
"Dozens of injured people were screaming for help, but the police immediately opened fire and I rushed back to my house," he added.
The injured were transported to Medina Hospital, where a Reuters witness saw dozens arriving by ambulance from the scene.
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Government authorities have told medical personnel not to disclose figures as they have done in the past.
And journalists are banned from going to attack sites to interview victims.
No group has claimed responsibility for today's attack.
Al-Shabab, the target of a growing number of US airstrikes since Donald Trump took office, controls parts of Somalia's southern and central regions.
It funds itself with a taxation system that experts describe as extortion of businesses and travellers that brings in millions of dollars a year.
Somalia has been hit by conflict since 1991, when clan warlords overthrew dictator Siad Barre, then turned on each other.
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