MOGADISHU: A Turkish military plane on Sunday evacuated 16 gravely wounded victims of a devastating bombing that killed 79 people and overwhelmed local health services, in the latest attack on a city dogged by insecurity.

The aircraft also brought doctors to help treat the some 125 people injured in Saturday’s blast, which happened when a vehicle packed with explosives detonated at a busy security checkpoint.

“The rescue mission continues since yesterday when the blast occurred and after long and diligent efforts, we have managed to evacuate 16 of the wounded people to Turkey for further medical treatment,” Mogadishu mayor Omar Mohamed Mohamud told reporters at the airport.

No group has claimed the bloody attack, however President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo has blamed Islamist group Al-Shabaab, which regularly carries out car bombings and other attacks on the capital, in their decade-long bid to topple the internationally-backed government.

Saturday’s bombing was the deadliest since truck exploded in 2017 near a fuel tanker, creating a fireball that killed over 500 people.

Farmaajo pinned the attack on the “terrorist organisation Al-Shabaab” in a televised message and slammed it as an attempt to “intimidate and terrorise the Somali public and to massacre them at every opportunity available”.

Published in Dawn, December 30th, 2019