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Rescue workers in Mogadishu: After attack on a hotel

Photo: Said Yusuf Wasame / EPA

According to the authorities, at least 22 children between the ages of ten and 15 were killed by an explosive device while playing football in the crisis state of Somalia. Three other children were injured on Friday in Qoryoley district in the southern province of Lower Shabelle, the governor of the province said, according to dpa. The children had found an intact explosive device on a football field and played with it, which finally exploded.

According to the governor, it is suspected that recent rains had exposed the explosive device, which was probably left behind by terrorists of the Islamist terrorist militia Al-Shabaab. The group controls large parts of southern Somalia and repeatedly carries out attacks on civilians, soldiers and politicians.

Terrorist attack in Mogadishu

Rebels of the Islamist Shabaab militia have attacked a hotel in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, according to the Somali government. "Security forces have rescued many people from the building and the operation is still ongoing," the government said in a statement. Eyewitnesses reported gunfire and explosions at the hotel. "I was near the Pearl Beach restaurant when (a) violent explosion occurred in front of the building," one man said. The information could not be verified at the moment.

The attack was claimed by the radical Islamic Shabaab militia, which is allied with Al-Qaeda and has been fighting against the Somali government supported by the international community since 2007. The rebels had already attacked a hotel on the beach in 2020. Ten civilians and a policeman were killed at the time.

In a report to the UN Security Council in February, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that 2022 was the year with the highest number of civilians killed in Somalia since 2017. The bloodiest attack in the country's history was carried out in October 2017, when 512 people were killed and around 300 others injured when a truck exploded. The authorities had also blamed the Shabaab militia.

ani/dpa/AFP