Police in Somalia said on Saturday that 32 people were killed and 63 others injured in an attack on a beach hotel in the capital Mogadishu yesterday evening.
Al-Shabab, al-Qaeda’s East African affiliate, said via its radio station that its fighters carried out the attack.
Police spokesman Major Abdifatah Aden Hassan told reporters that one soldier was killed and another wounded, while the rest of the dead were civilians. Witnesses said the blast was followed by gunfire.
Lido Beach, a popular area in Mogadishu, is very busy on Friday nights as Somalis enjoy their weekend.
One witness, Mohamed Moalim, told news agency The Associated Press that he saw one of the attackers wearing an explosive vest moments before he “blew himself up near the beachside hotel.”
Moalim said that some of his friends who were with him in the hotel were killed and others were injured.
Another witness, Abdisalam Adam, told the AP that he “saw many people lying on the ground” and had helped take some of the injured to a hospital.
The Lido Beach area has been targeted by militants linked to al-Shabab before. The most recent attack last year killed nine people.
In another attack on Saturday, state media reported seven people were killed when a passenger vehicle hit a roadside bomb about 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the capital.
Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud last year declared “total war” on the militants as the country began to take charge of its own security.
Al-Shabab still controls parts of southern and central Somalia and continues to launch attacks in Mogadishu and other areas, extorting millions of dollars a year from residents and merchants in an effort to establish an Islamic state.
Friday’s attack came a month after Somalia began the third phase of the withdrawal of peacekeepers under the African Union transition mission.
The UN Secretary-General’s Acting Special Representative for Somalia, James Swan, on Saturday expressed support and solidarity with Somalia “in its efforts to ensure peace, security and stability.”
He said Lido Beach is frequented by families and “targeting this location is a despicable act which must be strongly condemned.”