No fewer than 32 people have been killed in a suicide attack carried out by al-Shabab militants at a popular beachfront location in the Somali capital on Saturday.
According to the BBC, a police spokesman, Abdifatah Adan Hassan said around 63 people were also wounded, some of them critically.
Video footage showed a number of bodies and injured people in Mogadishu’s Abdiaziz district.
The group, Al-Shabab controls large parts of southern and central Somalia, affiliated to al-Qaeda and has waged a brutal insurgency for nearly 20 years against the UN-backed government in Somalia.
In a statement claiming the attack, al-Shabab said “politicians, [security] forces and employees from various ministries and offices” were among those killed.
The group says the death toll and injuries are much higher than figures released by the police.
One eyewitness, Abdilatif Ali said, “it was hard to know what was happening because shooting started soon after the blast”.
He said some people attempted to take cover on Lido beach, while others tried to flee the location.
“I saw wounded people at the beachside. People were screaming in panic and it was hard to notice who was dead and who was still alive,” he added
At least five people were responsible for the attack, as Mr Hasan said one attacker blew himself up while three others were killed.
The chair of the African Union Commission Moussa Faki Mahamat, described the attack as “horrific”.
The Somali Disaster Management Agency urged people to donate blood to support injured victims.
