At least nine people killed in blast targeting bus carrying workers to United Nations compound in north-eastern city of Garowe

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

The militant group al-Shabaab has bombed a minivan carrying staff to a United Nations office in the semi-autonomous Puntland region of Somalia, with nine people confirmed dead.

Among those killed were four people from the global body’s children’s fund Unicef, officials said.

Images posted on social media showed a blood-spattered white vehicle, its windows shattered and the roof blown off by the blast in the region’s administrative capital Garowe on Monday.

“The IED [improvised explosive device] attack occurred when the staff were travelling from their guest house to the office, normally a three-minute drive,” Unicef said in a statement. Four more of its staff were seriously wounded, it added.

Al-Qaida-linked al-Shabaab has staged a string of attacks in Somalia and surrounding countries in its bid to impose Islamist extremist ideals and overthrow a government backed by western donors and African peacekeepers.

“We are behind the Garowe attack,” al-Shabaab’s military operations spokesman, Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, told Reuters.

Mohamed Abdi, a police officer at the scene of the attack, earlier said Kenyans and Somalis had been killed, but Unicef said its staff came from a range of countries.

Nicholas Kay, the UN’s special representative for Somalia, said on his Twitter feed he was “shocked and appalled by loss of life”.



Nick Kay (@Somalia111) I condemn attack this morning on @UN in #Garowe. Shocked and appalled by loss of life. More details to follow. @UNSomalia #Somalia

Al-Shabaab, which once ruled much of Somalia, has been driven out of major strongholds in military offensives launched last year by thearmy and African Union peacekeepers.

Puntland, on the north-eastern tip of Somalia, had in the past largely avoided the regular attacks seen in other areas. However, attacks by the militant group have intensified this year.

Earlier this month, al-Shabaab fighters killed 148 people in a university campus in the Kenyan town of Garissa, about 120 miles (200km) from the Somali border. The group has said it wants to punish Kenya for sending troops to Somalia as part of the AU force.







