Gunmen stormed a scaled-up hotel on the beach in the Somali capital on Sunday after a car bomb exploded outside, according to reports.
An explosion was heard outside the Elite Hotel in Lido Beach in the Somali capital Mogadishu, police spokesman Sadik Ali told Reuters. Armed storms then stormed the building frequently by government officials, government workers and people from the diaspora.
At least five people have been killed, a government security official, Ahmed Omar, told AFP. He did not explain whether they were killed by bullets as the explosion.
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At least 28 people were injured in the blast, Aamin ambulance service chief Abdikadir Abdirahman told Reuters.
“There were deaths and injuries from civilians who walked by the hotel and others who were in the hotel. Among the dead is one director of the Ministry of Information, “said state news agency SONNA, quoting spokesman Ismail Mukhtar Omar of the ministry of information.
Paramedics and civilians carry a wounded person on a stretcher at Madina Hospital following an explosion at the Elite Hotel in Lido Beach in Mogadishu, Somalia on August 16, 2020. (Reuters / Feisal Omar)
“The death toll could rise because the blast was massive and involved a hostage situation,” Ahmed Omar said, adding that the attack was similar to that carried out by al-Shabaab militants.
A police officer named Adan Ibrahim told AFP that a “car bomb” caused the explosion and “heavy gunfire” was heard from the hotel. The government sent security forces to Lido Beach.
“The exchange of gunfire is terrible and mad bullets reached us at the beach,” Mohamed Nur, a government official, told Reuters.
Violence has banished Somalia since 1991, when clan warlords staged a military coup and overthrew Somali dictator Mohamed Siad Barre before betraying each other.
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Since 2008, al-Shabaab militants have been trying to overthrow the internationally recognized central government in Somalia. Al-Shabaab, designated a terrorist organization by the US and the United Kingdom, is drafting a strict version of Islamic Sharia law in regions under its control, which include stoning to death of women accused of robbery and amputating thieves’ hands, the BBC reported in 2017.
