At least 100 people died when two car bombs tore through a busy Mogadishu intersection on Saturday, Somalia’s president said Sunday after visiting the site of the attack, the same place where the largest terrorist attack in the country’s history killed more than 500 people almost exactly five years ago.
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said at least 300 people were hurt in Saturday’s twin bombings, which he blamed on the al Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab group that has been trying to overthrow Somalia’s U.S.-backed government for more than a decade and a half.
He said the number of victims was likely to increase as rescue workers continued to sift through the rubble.
Mogadishu hospitals urged the public to donate blood to help treat the injured, and anxious relatives were frantically searching for their missing loved ones.