31 March 2020•Update: 01 April 2020
MOGADISHU, Somalia/ANKARA, Turkey
A Somali governor and an ex-regional police chief died after succumbing to their wounds over a suicide bomb attack on Sunday, the police said on Tuesday.
Somalia’s Nugal Governor Abdisalan Hassan Hersi and former Nugal region police chief Farah Galangoli died after Sunday's bomb attack that was claimed by Al-Shabaab insurgents.
Sunday’s suicide bombing, which took place in the autonomous region of Puntland targeting the governor of Somalia’s Nugal region, also left at least one person killed on the same day, and two more people wounded apart from Hersi and Galangoli, police officer Nour Bashir told Anadolu Agency over the phone.
This comes while at least two Ethiopian peacekeepers were killed and four others wounded in a new bomb blast in southern Somalia, officials said Tuesday.
A vehicle carrying Ethiopian peacekeepers, part of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) was targeted in Garbaharey town in the southwestern region, according to a local police official.
"The attackers used an improvised explosive device to target Ethiopian soldiers based in Garbaharey. Two Ethiopian peacekeepers were killed and several other people, including soldiers and civilians, are being treated in hospital," Bashir said.
Garbaharey, the capital of the Gedo region, is located 449 kilometers (278 miles) southwest of Somalia’s capital Mogadishu.
Somalia-based al-Shabaab group, which is affiliated with al-Qaeda, claimed the attack.
It comes a day after the Somali military said it had killed 142 Al-Shabaab militants in recent operations in the Lower Shabelle region.
*Mohammed Dhaysane contributed to this story from Mogadishu, Somalia
