By Jared Kleinman
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa
MOGADISHU, Somalia – At least 19 people have been killed including three government ministers after an explosion tore through the Shamo Hotel in Mogadishu, the Somali capital.
A suicide bomber disguised as a woman carried out Thursday’s attack at the hotel during a crowded graduation ceremony for medical students from a local university, Dahir Mohamud Gelle, the Somali information minister, said.
The attack on Thursday was a severe blow to a country long battered by war and underscored the government’s tenuous hold on even a small area of Mogadishu. African Union peacekeeping troops protecting the government wage near daily battles with Islamic militants who hold much of central and southern Somalia and act so brazenly in the capital that they carry out public executions.
A Reuter’s reporter at the Shamo Hotel said it was packed with graduates from Benadir University, their parents and officials when a powerful blast tore through the ceremony. “Human flesh was everywhere,” he said.
“What happened today is a national disaster,” said Somali Information Minister Dahir Mohamud Gelle, who confirmed that the ministers for education, higher education and health were killed in the blast. The ministers for sports and tourism also were wounded in the attack inside the Shamo Hotel, he said.
Ali Yasin Gedi, vice-chairman of Mogadishu-based Elman Peace and Human Rights Organization, said more than 40 people were wounded, including the dean of Benadir’s medical college, who Gedi said had been evacuated by plane to neighboring Kenya.
This was not the first time that an attack has taken place in Mogadishu, “but it is the worst suicide attack ever”, said Ali Sheikh Yassin of the Mogadishu-based Elman Human Rights Organization. “This time the target was the most important people in Mogadishu; the educators and those who would take their place in the future.” Yassin said the attack had wiped out the best and brightest of the health sector. “We have reached a new low.” He said that whoever was behind this attack “deliberately targeted graduating doctors and their professors”, adding, “It is as if they want to kill any hopes of a better future”.
“A lot of my friends were killed,” another witness, medical student Mohamed Abdulqadir, told Reuters. “I was sitting next to a lecturer who also died. He had been speaking to the gathering just a few minutes before the explosion.”
The assailants hit one of Somalia’s most important efforts to extricate itself from anarchy and violence. The former medical students among the graduates came from only the second class to receive diplomas from the medical school. Before then, almost two decades has passed since anyone earned a medical degree in Somalia.
The bombing showed once again the insurgents’ ability to strike the government at will, and it will heighten frustration in the country’s fragile administration over delayed pledges of military and financial support from Western donors.
“Such an inhumane and cowardly act aimed at stalling the peace process will not deter the resolve and determination of the African Union to support the people of Somalia in their quest for peace and reconciliation,” The African Union peacekeeping force said in Thursday’s statement.
It was the worst attack in the lawless Horn of Africa nation since June when hardline al Shabaab rebels killed the security minister and at least 30 other people in a suicide bombing at a hotel in the central town of Baladwayne.
No group immediately claimed responsibility, but suspicion fell upon the militant group al-Shabaab, which has ties to al-Qaeda, controls much of the country and has carried out past suicide attacks.
For more information, please see:
Associated Press – Up to 19 Dead After Attack in Somalia – 4 December 2009
IRIN – ‘It is As If They Want to Kill Any Hopes of a Better Future’ – 3 December 2009
Al Jazeera – Ministers Killed in Somalia Attack – 3 December 2009
Reuters – Suicide Bomber Kills Three Somali Government Ministers – 3 December 2009