The death toll from a devastating 30-hour siege by al-Shabaab militants at a hotel in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, has climbed to 21, Somalian Minister of Health Ali Haji Adan said on Sunday, as anxious citizens awaited news of missing relatives.
The gun and bomb attack by the group on the popular Hayat Hotel caused parts of the building to collapse, with many people feared trapped inside since the assault began on Friday evening.
“The ministry of health has so far confirmed the deaths of 21 people and 117 people wounded,” 15 of them seriously, Adan said.
Photo: AP
Emergency workers and bomb disposal experts made their way through the heavily damaged hotel on Sunday, looking for any explosives and removing rubble as security forces patrolled the area.
Somalian Police Force Commissioner Abdi Hassan Mohamed Hijar told reporters on Sunday that “106 people including children and women” had been rescued during the siege, which ended around midnight.
As bullets and flames ripped through the hotel, security forces searched the property to bring civilians to safety, including three young children who hid inside a toilet.
“The casualties mostly happened in the early hours of the attack, after that security forces spent time rescuing people individually and room by room,” Hijar said.
The attack was the biggest in Mogadishu since Somalian President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud took office in June, and underscored the challenge of trying to crush the 15-year insurrection by the Islamist group.
Dozens of people arrived at the hotel premises on Sunday morning, desperate for news of their family members.
“It is like the devastation after a high-magnitude earthquake... You can only see damaged columns standing in most parts,” said nurse Sadik Ahmed, who lost his uncle in the attack.
“My uncle was killed in the reception area; he had gunshot wounds,” he said.
The hotel was a favored meeting spot for government officials and scores of people were inside when a suicide bomber triggered a massive blast, forcing his way onto the premises along with heavily armed gunmen.
Minutes later, a second explosion struck as rescuers, security forces and civilians rushed to help the injured, witnesses said.
Civil servant Abdifatah Mohamed said he had just sat down with a friend and ordered a cappuccino when he heard a deafening explosion, followed by gunfire.
“The gunmen directly went towards the lobby area in the main building where they were randomly shooting people,” he said.
He managed to find shelter near the toilets along with a dozen other people before being rescued 40 minutes later.
The EU, Turkey, the UK and the US, as well as the UN, strongly condemned the attack, as did the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia, tasked with helping Somalian forces take over primary responsibility for security by the end of 2024.
Earlier this month, Washington announced its forces had killed 13 al-Shabaab operatives in an air strike, the latest since US President Joe Biden ordered the re-establishment of a US troop presence in Somalia, reversing a decision by his predecessor Donald Trump.
Samira Gaid, executive director of the Hiraal Institute, a Mogadishu-based security think tank, said that the “audacious attack” was a message to the new government and its foreign allies.
“The complex attack is to show that they are still very much present, very relevant and that they can penetrate government security and conduct such attacks,” she said.
The key “difference between this attack and previous ones is the length of the siege and how long it took for security forces to contain the situation,” she added.
“The length of the siege has been very traumatizing,” even for a city that is regularly targeted by al-Shabaab, she said.
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