Five people have been killed and 10 more injured in Somalia after a bomb detonated in a football stadium in the Lower Shabelle region.
The blast, which occurred in the southwestern town of Barawe, has been attributed to the al-Shabab rebel group.
“We believe al-Shabab was behind it and that the target was officials who were not seated there at the time of the match. The bomb looks like a remotely controlled one that was planted there,” police officer Mohamed Aden was quoted as saying by the Reuters News Agency.
Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed condemned the attack which he said showed that al-Shabab was Somalia’s “only enemy.”
“Al-Shabab carried out an explosion that killed teenagers who were just playing football in Barawe town. Al-Shabab is the only enemy we have.”
The explosion is the latest in a string of attacks threatening Somalia’s fragile peace.
The east African country continues to grapple with a delicate security situation. An African Union Mission to Somalia (known as AMISOL) is expected to withdraw its last troops by 2020.
Earlier in March, two Somali soldiers were killed after a bomb exploded near a security checkpoint outside parliament in Mogadishu.
In October of last year, more than 300 people were killed after twin car explosions in the Somali capital, the deadliest of its kind in the country’s modern history.
[Source: BBC]
