DOCTOR dead-Somalia hospital car bomb blast: witnesses

 

A doctor was killed on Wednesday and two others wounded when a car bomb exploded at a hospital in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, staff and witnesses said.

The bomb, believed to have been attached to a car belonging to a doctor, blew up at Keysansey hospital in northern Mogadishu, which is run by the Somali Red Crescent Society with support from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

The doctor died and two colleges were injured in the explosion. Other civilians were also wounded.

"We are really devastated about the explosion inside the hospital, a medical doctor died and two others were seriously wounded in the attack," said hospital worker Mohamed Ali.

"The car exploded at the parking lot inside the main hospital compound," he added.

Another witness, Hussein Daqare, said two other cars parked nearby were also destroyed in the blast.

Other witnesses said some of the patients are also among the casualties.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Mogadishu has been hit by a string of attacks by the country's Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab rebels, who are fighting to overthrow the war-torn country's fragile internationally-backed government.

Recent Shebab attacks have targeted key areas of government, or the security forces, in an apparent bid to discredit claims by the authorities and African Union troops that they are winning the war against the Islamist fighters