Somalia truck bombing toll over 300 as scores missing

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — More than 300 people are dead after the truck bombing in Somalia’s capital and scores of others remain missing, authorities said Monday, as the fragile Horn of Africa nation reeled from one of the world’s worst attacks in years.

As funerals continued, the government said the death toll is expected to rise.

Another nearly 400 people are injured, many badly burned, after Saturday’s bombing targeted a crowded street in Mogadishu. Somalia’s government has blamed the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab, Africa’s deadliest Islamic extremist group, which has not commented.

As hospitals and families continued to count the dead, nearly 70 people remained missing, based on accounts from relatives, said police Capt. Mohamed Hussein. He said many bodies were burned to ashes in the attack.

More than 70 critically injured people were airlifted to Turkey for treatment as international aid began to arrive, officials said. Nervous relatives stood on the tarmac at the airport, praying for the recovery of their loved ones.

Overwhelmed hospitals in Mogadishu have struggled to assist other badly wounded victims, many burned beyond recognition. Exhausted doctors struggled to keep their eyes open as the screams from victims or newly bereaved families echoed in the halls.

The attack is one of the deadliest attacks in sub-Saharan Africa, larger than the Garissa University attack in Kenya in 2015, in which 148 died, and the U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, in which about 219 were killed.

Countries including Kenya and Ethiopia have offered to send medical aid in response to what Somali’s government has called a “national disaster,” said Information Minister Abdirahman Osman.

A plane carrying a medical team from Djibouti arrived to evacuate others wounded, said Mohamed Ahmed, an official with Somalia’s health ministry. It was the second team of foreign doctors to arrive in Mogadishu.