At least 10 people were killed in a bomb blast and left many others injured at a popular open-air market in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu on Tuesday, local residents told Reuters.
“I have counted 10 dead people and 15 others injured. My shop is completely destroyed. The blasts took place in four places in the centre of the market,” Hassan Ali, a trader at the Bakara market told Reuters.
It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the blasts but Islamist group al Shabaab frequently carries out bombings in Somalia and elsewhere.
The government was not immediately available for comment.
Bakara, Mogadishu’s largest market, teems with traders and is where most residents buy their food, clothes, medicine, electronics and other items daily.
Residents told Reuters several blasts went off, destroying many shops. Three nurses at Erdogan Hospital in Mogadishu told Reuters over 20 injured people had been brought to the facility.
Al Shabaab has been battling Somalia’s federal government and an African Union (AU)-mandated peacekeeping force for years seeking to establish a new government based on its own interpretation of sharia law.
