Alwaght- The death toll from Suicide bombing in Somalia's Baidoa city has risen to 20 people on Sunday, a local hospital official said.
Reuters cited Abdifatah Hashi, the general manager of Baidoa city hospital, as saying on Sunday “We received 20 dead people and about 40 others injured from the twin blasts of yesterday”.
Al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabaab militants, who want to topple Somalia’s Western-backed central government and impose their own rule based on a strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law, claimed responsibility for the attacks.
“What seems to be two suicide bombers blew themselves up in two restaurants in Baidoa,” Ali Aden, a police officer in the city, told Reuters on Saturday.
Residents of Baidoa told the news agency they heard two loud blasts in the early evening, followed by huge plumes of the smoke.
The al-Shabaab militants had targeted the two restaurants because they were frequented by government troops, Abdiasis abu Musab, the group’s spokesman for military operations, told Reuters.
Somalia has been engulfed by violence and lawlessness since the early 1990s after the toppling of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
