The death toll is still provisional, said doctor Yahye Ismail.
“Other patients, family members and even doctors, nurses and hospital staff were asked to give blood urgently to help the victims. The situation is bad,” Ismail told Efe.
Among the dead are two engineers of Turkish nationality, who at the time of the explosion were carrying out works on the road between Mogadishu and Afgoye, and several college students who were inside a minibus crossing the intersection.
The bombing took place at 08:00 local time (05:00 in Lisbon). A presumed suicide bomber blew up the vehicle near a tax office, at a checkpoint in the vicinity of which were patrol cars, students, and vendors of a vegetable stimulant.
So far, no terrorist group has claimed authorship, although the jihadist group Al Shabad has spoken out against the construction of this road.
Mogadishu is frequently attacked by Al Shabad, a terrorist organization that joined in 2012 on the international al Qaeda network and controls part of central and southern Somalia, where it aspires to establish an Islamic state of cariz wahabi (ultra-conservative).
Somalia has been in a state of conflict and chaos since 1991, when dictator Mohamed Siad Barré was overthrown, leaving the country without effective government and in the hands of Islamist militias and warlords, writes Efe.
C / Lusa
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