africa
At least 100 dead as two car bombs exploded at Somalia's capital
Somalia’s president says at least 100 people were killed in Saturday’s two car bombings at a busy junction in the capital and the toll could rise.
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in a statement at the site of the explosions told journalists early Sunday that nearly 300 other people were wounded.
It was the deadliest attack in Somalia since a truck bombing at the same spot in October 2017 killed more than 500 people.
Somalia’s government has blamed the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab extremist group, which often targets the capital. The group doesn’t make claims of responsibility when large numbers of civilians are killed.
Somalia’s president, elected this year, said the country remained at war with al-Shabab “and we are winning.” The government, along with militia groups, has been engaged in a new offensive against the extremists who hold large parts of the country.
At least 30 dead as two car bombs exploded at Somalia's capital
Two car bombs exploded Saturday at a busy junction in Somalia's capital near key government offices, causing “scores of civilian casualties" including children, national police said. One hospital worker counted at least 30 bodies amid fears of possibly many more.
The attack in Mogadishu occurred on a day when the president, prime minister and other senior officials were meeting to discuss expanded efforts to combat violent extremism, especially by the al-Qaida-affiliated al-Shabab group that often targets the capital. It also came five years after another massive blast in the exact same location killed over 500 people.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Al-Shabab rarely claims attacks with large numbers of civilians killed, as in the 2017 blast. But President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud blamed al-Shabab by name, calling the attack “cruel and cowardly.”
A volunteer at the Medina hospital, Hassan Osman, said “out of the total of at least 30 dead people brought to the hospital, the majority of them are women. I have seen this with my own eyes.” At the hospital and elsewhere, frantic relatives peeked under plastic sheeting and into body bags, looking for loved ones.
The Aamin ambulance service said they had collected at least 35 wounded. One ambulance responding to the first attack was destroyed by the second blast, director Abdulkadir Adan added in a tweet.
“I was 100 meters away when the second blast occurred,” witness Abdirazak Hassan said. “I couldn't count the bodies on the ground due to the (number of) fatalities.” He said the first blast hit the perimeter wall of the education ministry, where street vendors and money changers were located.
An Associated Press journalist at the scene said the second blast occurred in front of a busy restaurant during lunchtime. The blasts demolished tuk-tuks and other vehicles in an area of many restaurants and hotels. He saw “many” bodies and said they appeared to be civilians traveling on public transport.
The Somali Journalists Syndicate, citing colleagues and police, said one journalist was killed and two others wounded by the second blast while rushing to the scene of the first.
The attack occurred at Zobe junction, which was the scene of a huge al-Shabab truck bombing in 2017 that killed more than 500 people.
Somalia’s government has been engaged in a high-profile new offensive against the extremist group that the United States has described as one of al-Qaida’s deadliest organizations. The president has described it as “total war" against the extremists, who control large parts of central and southern Somalia and have been the target of scores of U.S. airstrikes in recent years.
The extremists have responded by killing prominent clan leaders in an apparent effort to dissuade support for that government offensive.
On Saturday, Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre said the attack would not dampen the public uprising against al-Shabab, and he and the president expressed the government's determination to wipe out the extremist group.
30 killed after explosions strike Somalia's Mogadishu
Two car bombs exploded Saturday at a busy junction in Somalia’s capital near key government offices, leaving “scores of civilian casualties” including children, national police said. One hospital worker counted at least 30 bodies.
The attack in Mogadishu occurred on a day when the president, prime minister and other senior officials were meeting to discuss combating violent extremism, especially by the al-Qaida-affiliated al-Shabab group that often targets the capital. It also came five years after another massive blast in the exact same location killed over 500 people.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Al-Shabab rarely claims attacks with large numbers of civilians killed, as in the 2017 blast. But Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre blamed al-Shabab by name.
A volunteer at the Medina hospital, Hassan Osman, said “out of the total of at least 30 dead people brought to the hospital, the majority of them are women. I have seen this with my own eyes.” At the hospital, frantic relatives peeked under plastic sheeting and into body bags, looking for loved ones.
The Aamin ambulance service said they had collected at least 35 wounded. One ambulance responding to the first attack was destroyed by the second blast, director Abdulkadir Adan added in a tweet.
“I was 100 meters away when the second blast occurred,” witness Abdirazak Hassan said. “I couldn’t count the bodies on the ground due to the (number of) fatalities.” He said the first blast hit the perimeter wall of the education ministry, where street vendors and money changers were located.
An Associated Press journalist at the scene said the second blast occurred in front of a busy restaurant during lunchtime. The blasts demolished tuk-tuks and other vehicles in an area of many restaurants and hotels. He saw “many” bodies and said they appeared to be civilians traveling on public transport.
The Somali Journalists Syndicate, citing colleagues and police, said one journalist was killed and two others wounded by the second blast while rushing to the scene of the first.
The attack occurred at Zobe junction, which was the scene of a huge al-Shabab truck bombing in 2017 that killed more than 500 people.
Somalia’s government has been engaged in a high-profile new offensive against the extremist group that the United States has described as one of al-Qaida’s deadliest organizations. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has described it as “total war” against the extremists, who control large parts of central and southern Somalia and have been the target of scores of U.S. airstrikes in recent years.
The extremists have responded by killing prominent clan leaders in an apparent effort to dissuade support for that government offensive.
On Saturday, the prime minister said the attack would not dampen the public uprising against al-Shabab and again expressed the government’s determination to wipe out the extremist group.
At least 60 killed in Chad protests
Chadian security forces opened fire on anti-government demonstrators in the country’s two largest cities Thursday killing at least 60 people, the government spokesman and a morgue official said.
Authorities imposed a curfew after the violence, which came amid demonstrations in the central African nation against interim leader Mahamat Idriss Deby’s two-year extension of power.
Chadian government spokesman Aziz Mahamat Saleh said 30 people were dead in the capital, N’Djamena. Organizers of the march, though, placed the toll higher, at 40.
Another 32 protesters were killed in Chad’s second-largest city, Moundou, according to an official in the city’s morgue. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said more than 60 people were wounded.
Other protests were held in the towns of Doba and Sarh.
Read: 15 killed, 50 injured in anti-UN protests in Congo’s east
These were the deadliest anti-government protests since Deby took over last year in the wake of his father’s assassination after more than three decades in power. Officials said the late President Idriss Deby Itno was killed by rebels while visiting Chadian troops on the battlefield in the country’s north in April 2021.
At the main reference hospital in N’Djamena, overwhelmed doctors tended to scores of people with gunshot wounds. Some of the wounded were taken to Liberty Hospital by army vehicles and bore signs of having been tortured, witnesses said.
Witnesses say demonstrators began to blow whistles at 3 a.m. all over the capital of N’Djamena. Police fired tear gas at the crowds but the demonstrators continued advancing and their numbers grew. It was then that security forces opened fire, leaving protesters struggling to gather the dead from the scene amid the tear gas.
Among those killed was a Chadian journalist, Narcisse Oredje, who worked for CEFOD radio and was struck by a bullet.
UN says part of Somalia will reach famine later this year
The United Nations says “famine is at the door” in Somalia with “concrete indications” famine will occur later this year in the southern Bay region. This falls just short of a formal famine declaration in Somalia as thousands are dying in a historic drought made worse by the effects of the war in Ukraine.
U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told reporters that he was “shocked to my core these past few days” on a visit to Somalia in which he witnessed starving babies too weak to cry.
A formal famine declaration is rare and a warning that too little help has come too late. At least 1 million people in Somalia have been displaced by the worst drought in decades, driven by climate change, that also affects the wider Horn of Africa including Ethiopia and Kenya.
Famine is the extreme lack of food and a significant death rate from outright starvation or malnutrition combined with diseases like cholera. A declaration means data shows more than a fifth of households have extreme food gaps, more than 30% of children are acutely malnourished and over two people out of 10,000 are dying every day.
Also read: UN warns 6 million Afghans at risk of famine as crises grow
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been described as a disaster for Somalia, which has suffered from a shortage of humanitarian aid as international donors focus on Europe. Somalia also sourced at least 90% of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine before the war and has been hit hard by scarcity and the sharp rise in food prices.
“Ukraine has occupied the narrative,” Griffiths said.
Hungry families in Somalia have been staggering for days or weeks on foot through parched terrain in search of assistance. Many bury family members along the way. Even when they reach camps outside urban areas, they find little or no help.
At one camp outside the capital, Mogadishu, Fadumo Abdi Aliyow showed The Associated Press the graves of her two small sons next to their makeshift home. Disease had overwhelmed their weakened bodies. One was 4. The other was eight months old.
Also read: Ukraine's ports must be reopened to avert looming famine threat: UN
“I wanted to die before them so they could bury me,” Aliyow said. Another resident of the camp of 1,800 families, Samey Adan Mohamed, said the last meal she and her eight children had was rice a day ago. Today they had only tea.
Camps like theirs are ringed by death, bringing aid workers to tears. “I couldn’t get out of my head the tiny mounds of ground marking children’s graves,” UNICEF’s deputy regional director Rania Dagash said last week. “I’m from this region and I’ve never seen it so bad.”
A formal famine declaration would bring desperately needed funding. But “tragically, by the time a famine is declared, it’s already too late,” the U.N. World Food Program has said.
When famine was declared in parts of Somalia in 2011, the deaths of a quarter-million people were well underway.
“This is not a repeat of the 2011 famine. It is much worse,” the U.N. humanitarian agency said last week. So far, at least 730 children have died in nutrition centers across Somalia, it said, and more than 213,000 people are at “imminent risk” of dying.
“You feel like you’re looking at the face of death,” Mercy Corps CEO Tjada McKenna told the AP after visiting the badly hit city of Baidoa. There is not enough therapeutic food to treat the acutely malnourished, said McKenna, who saw many young children and pregnant women. “For every one person I saw, imagine all the people who couldn’t get that far. And so many people were arriving each day.”
At the same time, aid funding has dropped more than 60% from the response to Somalia’s previous drought in 2017, USAID administrator Samantha Power said last week, noting a “degree of despair and devastation” not seen before in her career.
The Horn of Africa region has seen four straight failed rainy seasons for the first time in well over four decades. The upcoming rainy season is also expected to fail. That endangers an estimated 20 million people in one of the world’s most impoverished and turbulent regions.
“Sadly, our models show with a high degree of confidence that we are entering the fifth consecutive failed rainy season,” the director of the regional climate prediction center, Guleid Artan, has said. “In Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia, we are on the brink of an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe.”
The rainfall in this year’s failed March-to-May season was the lowest in the last six decades, Artan told the AP. Next year’s March-to-May season doesn’t look good either, he said, worrying that “this could be the seven-year drought, the biblical one.”
Formal famine declarations are rare because data to meet the benchmarks often cannot be obtained because of conflict, poor infrastructure or politics. Governments can be wary of being associated with a term of such grim magnitude. Somalia's recently elected president, however, appointed a drought envoy in one of his first acts in office, which Griffiths called “impressive.”
Because of the remote nature of Somalia’s drought, and with some hard-hit areas under the control of the al-Shabab extremist group which has been hostile to humanitarian efforts, no one knows how many people have died — or will in the months to come.
Hundreds of calls from across Somalia, including from al-Shabab-controlled areas, come in daily to the Somali-run Radio Ergo. Some say no aid is available in camps. Others say water sources have run dry or lament the loss of millions of livestock that are the foundation of their health and wealth.
“People don’t cry because they want their voice to be heard,” radio editor Leyla Mohamed told the AP. “But you can feel they are hurting, that they feel more than we can hear.”
Deadly clashes shake Libya's capital, killing 23 people
Deadly clashes broke out Saturday in Libya's capital between militias backed by its two rival administrations, portending a return to violence amid a long political stalemate.
At least 23 people were killed and 140 more wounded, the Health Ministry said. It added that 64 families were evacuated from areas around the fighting.
The escalation threatens to shatter the relative calm Libya has enjoyed for most of the past two years. The oil-rich nation plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.
Among the fatalities was Mustafa Baraka, a comedian known for his social media videos mocking militias and corruption. Baraka died after he was shot in his chest, said Malek Merset, an emergency services spokesman.
Merset said emergency services were still trying to evacuate wounded and civilians trapped in the fighting that erupted overnight and continued into Saturday evening.
The Health Ministry said in a statement hospitals and medical centers in the capital were shelled, and ambulance teams were barred from evacuating civilians, in acts that “amount to war crimes.”
The municipal council of Tripoli blamed the ruling political class for the deteriorating situation in the capital, and urged the international community to “protect civilians in Libya.”
The violence caused widespread panic among Tripoli residents. Footage circulated online showed houses, government facilities, and vehicles apparently damaged from the fighting. Other footage showed militia forces deploying and heavy fire being exchanged across the night sky.
The U.N. mission in Libya said the fighting involved “indiscriminate medium and heavy shelling in civilian-populated neighborhoods” of Tripoli.
Read: 26 Bangladeshis killed in Libya gun attack
The mission called for an immediate cease-fire, and for all parties in Libya to “refrain from using any form of hate speech and incitement to violence.”
The clashes pitted the Tripoli Revolutionaries’ Brigade militia, led by Haitham Tajouri, against another militia allied with Abdel-Ghani al-Kikli, an infamous warlord known as “Gheniwa,” according to local media. Later on Saturday, more militias joined the fighting which spread in different areas in the capital.
Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah’s government, which is based in Tripoli, claimed the clashes broke out when one militia fired at another.
The fighting, however, is highly likely part of ongoing power struggle between Dbeibah and his rival Prime Minister Fathy Bashagha who is operating from the coast city of Sirte.
Both Dbeibah and Bashagha are backed by militias, and the latter was mobilizing in recent weeks to try to enter Tripoli to dislodge his rival.
An attempt in May by Bashagha to install his government in Tripoli triggered clashes that ended with his withdrawal from the capital.
U.S. Ambassador to Libya Richard Norland urged for de-escalation “before things get worse” and for Libyan parties to agree on an early date for elections.
Somali forces end hotel attack in which 20 were killed
Somali authorities on Sunday ended a deadly attack in which at least 20 people were killed and many others wounded when gunmen stormed a hotel in the capital.
It took Somali forces more than 30 hours to contain the fighters who had stormed Mogadishu's Hayat Hotel on Friday evening in an assault that started with loud explosions.
The siege ended around midnight, police commissioner Abdi Hassan Hijar told reporters.
“During the attack, the security forces rescued many civilians trapped in the hotel, including women and children," he said.
Police are yet to give a detailed explanation of how the attack unfolded. It remains unclear how many gunmen entered the hotel.
Read: Market blast in north Syria kills 15 people, wounds dozens
Ismail Abdi, the hotel's manager, told The Associated Press that security forces were still working to clear the area.
No more gunfire could be heard after 9 a.m. local time. Onlookers gathered outside the gates of the badly damaged hotel on Sunday morning, surveying the scene.
The Islamic extremist group al-Shabab, which has ties with al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest of its frequent attempts to strike places visited by government officials.
The attack on the hotel is the first major terror incident in Mogadishu since Somalia’s new leader, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, took over in May.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the attack, according to a spokesman's statement that said the U.N. supports the people of Somalia ”in their fight against terrorism and their march towards peace.”
Gunmen storm hotel in Somali capital, leave 20 dead
Islamic militants have stormed a hotel in Somalia's capital, engaging in an hours-long exchange of fire with the security forces that left at least 20 people dead, according to police and witnesses.
In addition, at least 40 people were wounded in the late Friday night attack and security forces rescued many others, including children, from the scene at Mogadishu's popular Hayat Hotel, they said Saturday.
The attack started with explosions outside the hotel before the gunmen entered the building.
Somali forces were still trying to end the siege of the hotel almost 24 hours after the attack started. Gunfire could still be heard Saturday evening as security forces tried to contain the last gunmen thought to be holed up on the hotel’s top floor.
The Islamic extremist group al-Shabab, which has ties with al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest of its frequent attempts to strike places visited by government officials. The attack on the hotel is the first major terror incident in Mogadishu since Somalia's new leader, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, took over in May.
In a Twitter post, the U.S. Embassy in Somalia said it “strongly condemns” the attack on the Hayat.
Read: Gunmen kill 4 in attack targeting lawmaker in NW Pakistan
“We extend condolences to the families of loved ones killed, wish a full recovery to the injured, & pledge continued support for #Somalia to hold murderers accountable & build when others destroy,” it said.
There was no immediate word on the identities of the victims, but many are believed to be civilians.
Mohamed Abdirahman, director of Mogadishu’s Madina Hospital, told the AP that 40 people were admitted there with wounds or injuries from the attack. While nine were sent home after getting treatment, five are in critical condition in the ICU, he said.
“We were having tea near the hotel lobby when we heard the first blast, followed by gunfire. I immediately rushed toward hotel rooms on the ground floor and I locked the door,” witness Abdullahi Hussein said by phone. “The militants went straight upstairs and started shooting. I was inside the room until the security forces arrived and rescued me.”
He said on his way to safety he saw “several bodies lying on the ground outside hotel reception.”
Al-Shabab remains the most lethal Islamic extremist group in Africa.
The group has seized even more territory in recent years, taking advantage of rifts among Somali security personnel as well as disagreements between the government seat in Mogadishu and regional states. It remains the biggest threat to political stability in the volatile Horn of Africa nation.
Forced to retreat from Mogadishu in 2011, al-Shabab is slowly making a comeback from the rural areas to which it retreated, defying the presence of African Union peacekeepers as well as U.S. drone strikes targeting its fighters.
The militants in early May attacked a military base for AU peacekeepers outside Mogadishu, killing many Burundian troops. The attack came just days before the presidential vote that returned Mohamud to power five years after he had been voted out.
Zimbabweans hit by 257% inflation: Will gold coins help?
After working as an overnight security guard at a church in Harare’s impoverished Mabvuku township, Jeffrey Carlos rushes home to help his wife fetch water to sell.
Prolonged water shortages mean most residents of the capital city of more than 2.4 million must source their own water. Carlos is lucky because the property he rents has a well and his family can haul up buckets of water to sell to neighbors.
“This is our gold,” he says of the well water.
“If we are lucky, we can sell up to 12 buckets of water (per day) for $2,” said the 50-year-old father of three. That’s about enough money to buy the family’s food for the day, he said.
Rising prices and a fast depreciating currency have pushed many Zimbabweans to the brink, reminding people of when the southern African country faced world-record inflation of 5 billion% in 2008. With inflation jumping from 191% in June to 257% in July, many Zimbabweans fear the country is heading back to such hyperinflation.
To prevent a return of such economic disaster, President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government last month took the unprecedented step of introducing gold coins as legal tender. The country’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, said that because the value of the one-ounce, 22-carat coins would be determined by the international price of gold they will help tame the runaway inflation and stabilize the nation’s currency.
The glitter of the gold coins is hard to see for Zimbabweans struggling each day to eke out a living. The government sees things differently and is pleading for time.
Although expensive at an average price of just below $2,000 per coin, central bank governor John Mangudya said the coin will have a trickle-down effect that will eventually help average folk.
“The ordinary man will benefit more from the stability (provided by) these gold coins. Where there is stability, money will have value and stability in prices,” said Mangudya ahead of the launch. He said the central bank plans to introduce smaller denominated gold coins in November to allow ordinary people to also use them as a saving mechanism. The smaller coins will be half an ounce, a quarter of an ounce and 10% of an ounce, he said.
But many such as Carlos say they can hardly afford a meal, let alone earn enough to save.
“Where will I get the money to buy the gold coins? It is for them, the rich. Poor people like me do not see any difference. Things continue to be hard in this country,” he told The Associated Press between trips to the well to pull up buckets of water.
“Gold coins are a scheme for the elite. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer,” said Gift Mugano, an economics professor during an online roundtable debate titled: “Is there gold in the coins?”
With so many Zimbabweans scrambling to get food to eat each day, there are questions if the gold coins will help them.
“People are struggling. They are living from hand to mouth so most people may not actually have the money to save in the first place. Most people are in survivalist mode because of inflation,” said Prosper Chitambara, a Harare-based economist.
Read: 'It's a nightmare': Zimbabwe struggles with hyperinflation
To get by, many are forced to take up multiple jobs.
Carlos, in Mabvuku, says he gets about $100 dollars a month from his job as an overnight security guard for a church and the bar next door. That’s hardly enough to pay rent, school fees and other basic needs. Sometimes, he exchanges water for food items.
“If we fetch water for someone but they don’t have money, so we get tomatoes, vegetables, beans or maize. That’s how we get food,” he said.
His wife, Christwish, 43, prepares the day’s evening meal — the staple maize (corn) meal and vegetables plucked from a small home garden — over a wood fire. Because of Zimbabwe’s lengthy power cuts, the children do their homework by a candle, although their parents press them to use it sparingly.
“The firewood costs a dollar for a small bundle enough (to cook) for a single meal. The candles are also expensive,” lamented Christwish, who supplements the family income by doing household chores for better-off families in exchange for money or food items.
Items previously regarded as basics are now out of reach, she said.
“We last ate bread with margarine on Christmas Day,” she said. “Now we just see these things in the shops and leave them there.”
Sudan floods continue to tear up homes; 66 people killed
Flash floods triggered by heavy rains continued to tear up homes across Sudan, an official said Tuesday, with the death toll rising to 66 since the start of the rainy season.
Earlier this week, authorities had said that at least 50 people were killed since the rains started in June. Brig. Gen. Abdul-Jalil Abdul-Rahim, spokesman for Sudan’s National Council for Civil Defense, said Tuesday that at least 28 people were reported injured during the same period.
Some 24,000 homes and two dozen government buildings have been badly damaged or completely destroyed, he said.
Sudan has been without a functioning government since an October military coup derailed its short-lived democratic transition following the 2019 removal of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir in a popular uprising.
Overall, around 136,000 people have been impacted by heavy rainfall and floods in 12 of Sudan’s 18 provinces, according to the government-run Humanitarian Aid Commission.
Read: 357 killed, over 400 injured as monsoon rains continue to batter Pakistan
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the floods also inundated 238 health facilities. The western Darfur region and the provinces of Nile River, White Nile, West Kordofan and South Kordofan were among the hardest hit, it said.
Footage circulated online over the past weeks showing flood waters sweeping through streets and people struggling to save their belongings.
Sudan’s rainy season usually starts in June and lasts until the end of September, with floods peaking in August and September. More than 80 people were killed last year in flood-related incidents during the rainy season.
In 2020, authorities declared Sudan a natural disaster area and imposed a three-month state of emergency across the country after flooding and heavy rains killed around 100 people and inundated over 100,000 houses.