At least eight people were killed and 17 injured in a car bombing Mogadishu on Thursday. The report is claimed by the Al-Shabaab terrorist group, officials and witnesses.
According to Aljazeera, the terror group intended to strike a United Nations security convoy passing near a school in Mogadishu. At least 13 schoolchildren and 4 staff were wounded.
“A brick hit me in the head and blood was gushing onto my uniform,” said Abdisalan Omar Ibrahim.
Mohamed Hussein, a nurse at the nearby Osman Hospital, both the hospital and the school across the street collapsed reports Reuters. “They were shaken by the blast pressure, then deafened by the gunfire that followed, ” he told.
Despite an international coalition of forces fighting to secure Somalia against Al-Shabaab, the terrorist group has become one of the largest and most active in the world and has maintained control over much of Somalia’s southern and southcentral regions.
The al-Shabaab expansion has made Somalia a region of terror for Christians, a closed country where Islamic extremists circulate freely, and the church operates in secret. Christians make up only 0.33% of the population and conversion means certain death or other forms of extreme violence or torture. Somali Christians keep their faith concealed as Al-Shabaab desires to eradicate all believers from the country.