Deadly Suicide Attack Drags Somali Conflict to New Low

Dozens of people were killed and many more injured in an explosion at a graduation ceremony held in a city hotel.

This was not the first time that an attack has taken place in Mogadishu, "but it is the worst suicide attack ever", said Ali Sheikh Yassin of the Mogadishu-based Elman Human Rights Organization.

"This time the target was the most important people in Mogadishu; the educators and those who would take their place in the future."

Yassin said the attack had wiped out the best and brightest of the health sector. "We have reached a new low." He said that whoever was behind this attack "deliberately targeted graduating doctors and their professors", adding, "it is as if they want to kill any hopes of a better future".

A teacher, who lost a close friend, told IRIN that "these people [perpetrators] are after government people but [also] ordinary people. What on earth did these students or their parents do to deserve this? It seems no matter who you are you are a target. God help us."

Somali government spokesman Abdi Haji Gobdon told IRIN: "I can confirm that the ministers for health, Qamar Aden Ali, higher education, Prof Ibrahim Hassan Adow, and Ahmed Abdullahi Wayeel, minister for education, were killed in a suicide attack this morning."

Source: Allafrica