A bombing near a cafe in Somalia where people were watching England’s Euro 2024 final with Spain has left at least five people dead.
Police said a car loaded with explosives blew up next to the cafe in the Somali capital of Mogadishu.
At least 20 other people were injured, according to police spokesman Major Abdifitah Aden Hassa.
People were inside the venue watching the game live from Berlin on a screen at the time.
Pictures of the scene showed the burnt out wreckage of several vehicles and extensive damage to buildings.
A witness, Ismail Adan, said: “Some of the spectators got injured while trying to jump the perimeter wall of the cafe, and others got wounded in a stampede.”
Most of the victims were in the street at the time of the explosion, he added.
A reporter from the Reuters news agency said the bomb destroyed 10 cars and damaged several buildings in a highly guarded area near the Presidential Palace.
It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the explosion.
Attacks by the Islamic militant group al Shabaab are frequently reported in Mogadishu and elsewhere in Somalia.
Image: People were watching the Euro 2024 final in the cafe at the time of the blast. Pic: Reuters
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The group opposes Somalia’s federal government, which depends on the support of foreign troops to stay in power.
But Mogadishu has been mostly peaceful in recent months.
That calm was broken on Saturday with an attempted jailbreak by inmates inside a Mogadishu prison.
In that attack, in which at least eight people were killed, prisoners convicted for their roles in al Shabaab attacks exchanged fire with guards before they were killed.
Somalia’s government is conducting a high-profile offensive against the extremist group, who control large parts of central and southern Somalia and which the US has described as one of al Qaeda’s deadliest organisations.
Source : Sky News
