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Turkish Army plane carrying medical staff lands in Mogadishu

29 December 2019 12:43 (UTC +04:00)

Turkish Air Forces’ plane carrying medical staff and supplies landed in the Somalian capital Mogadishu on Sunday to help the victims who were the subject of a brutal terrorist attack carried out by a bomb-laden vehicle, APA reports citing Daily Sabah.

The attack killed nearly 80 people and injured many others.

The plane carrying 20 medical staff, including the national rescue team staff and surgeons, took off from Etimesgut Military Airport in the Turkish capital Ankara late Saturday and landed in Mogadishu early Sunday, Turkey’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.

The attack was one of the deadliest attacks in Mogadishu in recent memory, and witnesses said the force of the blast reminded them of the devastating 2017 bombing that killed hundreds.

Most of those killed were university and other students returning to class, Mayor Omar Mohamud Mohamed said at the scene. Two Turkish brothers were among the dead, Somalia's foreign minister said.

Turkey's Ambassador to Somalia Mehmet Yılmaz confirmed that two Turkish nationals were among the victims of the attack. Some of the injured were brought to the Turkish-run Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Training and Research Hospital located in the capital, Yılmaz added.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. The al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab often carries out such attacks. The terrorist group was pushed out of Mogadishu several years ago but continues to target high-profile areas such as checkpoints and hotels in the seaside city.

The terrorist group is now able to make its own explosives, its “weapon of choice,” United Nations experts monitoring sanctions on Somalia said earlier this year. The group had previously relied on military-grade explosives captured during assaults on an African Union peacekeeping force.

Al-Shabab was blamed for the truck bombing in Mogadishu in October 2017 that killed more than 500 people. The group never claimed responsibility for the blast that led to widespread public outrage.