Somalia marks 1 year since devastating Mogadishu attack
16 October, 2018
Somalia on Sunday marked the first anniversary of one of the world’s deadliest attacks since 9/11, a truck bombing in the heart of Mogadishu that killed well over 500 people, while the man accused of orchestrating the blast was executed by a firing squad.
As people gathered at a new memorial with prayers and a minute of silence, the deputy prosecutor general of the Somali military court, Capt. Mumin Hussein, confirmed the execution of Hassan Aden Isaq. It was the first under the country’s Somali-American President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed.
Memories of the bombing are still raw in a country that has faced decades of deadly warlord-led chaos and attacks by the Al-Qaida-linked Al-Shabab extremist group. The Oct. 14, 2017, bombing was so devastating that Al-Shabab never claimed responsibility amid local outrage.
The new U.N. envoy to Somalia, Nicholas Haysom, on Sunday called it “the deadliest ever terrorist attack in Africa, and such terrorist attacks amount to a war crime.”
“In my mind, it feels like it has happened just yesterday,” said Sadiya Mohamed, a 49-year-old who lost her eldest son. He is among hundreds of people still missing. “I can barely get sleep since that dark day. He was everything for us,” she said.
Somalia’s government declared Sunday as a national day to remember victims of all “terrorist” bombings across the Horn of Africa nation.
On Sunday, the fatigues-wearing president traveled to the coastal town of Marka to mark the anniversary with a military brigade formed by young men who volunteered for service after last year’s attack, presidential spokesman Abdinur Mohamed told The Associated Press. The brigade is named after the bombing.
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