Explosion kills three in crowded Somali market

An explosion has occurred at a market packed with civilians in Somalia, leaving at least three people dead and six others injured.

The explosion occurred as merchants and farmers were busy selling products to customers in a livestock market in Afgoye district near the capital, Mogadishu.

“Three people died in the blast and six others wounded from what seems to have been a grenade,” Abdukadir Mohamed, a local security official, said on Wednesday.

Ahmed Gure, a local resident, said, “There was chaos, people were running for shelter, several bodies were strewn around — including two soldiers.”

No group has so far claimed responsibility for the Wednesday attack, but, al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab terrorists have frequently staged attacks against government officials and civilians in Somalia over the past years.

On Monday, a car bomb blast claimed the lives of at least five people, including school children, outside a restaurant in Mogadishu.

Somalia has been the scene of a militancy by al-Shabab since 2006. The Takfiri terrorists have been pushed out of Mogadishu and other major cities by government forces and the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM), which is largely made up of troops from Ethiopia, Uganda, Burundi, Djibouti, Sierra Leone and Kenya.

The militant group, however, continues to carry out attacks in the capital, and elsewhere in the country.