“We know that we will die one day, but you never want to believe your own child will be killed in an explosion,” the elder Mr. Abukar said.

It was a week before midsemester exams began, and the students were anxious to reach campus to begin preparing. Traveling in two minibuses during the morning rush hour, they were passing through a busy intersection known as the Ex-Control Junction when the blast ripped through the traffic, blowing out a wall of a police station and tax collection center.

Pieces of the victims’ bodies and blown-up textbooks mixed with the sand, stone and scraps of metal strewn around the intersection. The attack, the worst in Somalia in more than two years, left countless families, friends and colleagues struggling to comprehend how so much could be lost so senselessly — yet again.

Somalia has been at war for nearly three decades, wracked first by combat among clan warlords and then by violent extremism. For most of that time, it effectively had no central government, followed by a government with a tenuous hold and limited power.

To bolster security and prevent attacks, the authorities have resorted to barricading or entirely closing major roads in Mogadishu. Yet the deadly violence in the city has continued unabated, quashing the spirit of the long-suffering people and leaving them to wonder who will fall victim next.