Somali President, Kenyan officials survive Mogadishu blast

Added by Mohamed Abdi on September 12, 2012.
Saved under Featured, News, Somalia

Mogadishu (Alshahid)-Somalia President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Kenyan officials were unharmed after two blasts claimed by Alshabab militants rocked the Mogadishu hotel where they were meeting Wednesday, the African Union mission to Somalia said.

Kenyan Foreign Affairs Ministry said Kenyan Foreign minister Sam Ongeri and other Kenyan MPs were meeting with President Hassan at Jazeera beach hotel at the time of the explosion and that they had all been evacuated.

“There has been a blast around the hotel where the president was. The president is safe. All the people who were inside the hotel are safe,” Colonel Ali Houmed, a spokesman for the force, told AFP.

At least two people died in the blasts.

Hassan was elected on Monday, beating Shariff Sheikh Ahmed who was seeking re-election after leading a transitional government for three years.

The new president is expected to form a fully functioning government for Somalia which has not had one since 1991, when Gen Mohamed Siyad Bare was overthrown.

  • thehassanabdi

    And we thought we had secured the city lol seriously there can be NO peace in somalia until we engage in a serious dialogue with al-shabaab let’s not fool ourselves. Even if the islamists lose kismayo that will not mean their end,they will simply melt into the public and continue carrying out more brutal attacks.

London Conference on Somalia