15 Jan. (EUROPA PRESS) –
At least 15 people have died and more than 50 have been injured in two attacks that occurred late this past Saturday near African Union bases in the Somali state of Hirshabelle, in the center of the country.
The first attack occurred in the city of Bulobarde, where a terrorist behind the wheel of a car bomb killed eleven people and injured fifty, according to medical sources confirmed to the Somali affiliate of the US international radio station Voice of America.
Security forces identified the vehicle and opened fire on the driver, but the cargo eventually exploded near a police station and a base of the African Union forces, most of them from Djibouti.
About thirty of the injured are in critical condition, according to local doctor Yusuf Isaq Mumin.
Another car bomb near a military post in the city of Jalalaqsi has left at least four more dead, as confirmed by former district commissioner Mire Husein Siyad, a witness to the explosion.
So far no group has claimed responsibility for the attacks but the Somali authorities point to the jihadist organization Al Shabaab, right now the target of one of the largest military offensives in recent years by the Somali security forces.
As in the previous attack, the checkpoint was located near another base of Djiboutian soldiers from the African Union.
