{Ambulance workers in the Somali capital Mogadishu have told the BBC they have counted 28 dead bodies at a hotel following a bomb attack by militants.}<\/p>\n
They said 43 others, including seven journalists, were injured after bombs exploded at the Dayah hotel – although there have been no official numbers.<\/p>\n
Somali security minister Abdirizak Omar Mohamed earlier said four attackers had been killed by security forces.<\/p>\n
The Islamist militant group al-Shabab has said it carried out the attack.<\/p>\n
Eyewitnesses said the attackers used a vehicle laden with explosives to blast their way into the hotel, where members of parliament were believed to be staying.<\/p>\n
Shortly after the first blast, another vehicle exploded, killing and wounding more people who had gathered in the area.<\/p>\n
Survivors described how hotel residents hid under beds and others jumped out of windows to escape from the attackers.<\/p>\n
Hassan Nur told the AP news agency: “They [the gunman] kicked down room doors and at some point posed themselves as rescue teams by telling those inside to come out, (only) to kill them.”<\/p>\n
Police officer Colonel Abdiqadir Hussein told Reuters that security forces had later managed to secure the building.<\/p>\n
“We have rescued the people and concluded the operation at Dayah hotel,” he said.
\n“The security forces are now inside the hotel.”<\/p>\n
The hotel is located less than a mile from Somalia’s presidential palace and is popular with dignitaries.<\/p>\n
The attack comes at a time when the country is preparing for indirect elections where MPs are set to choose a president.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Ambulance workers in the Somali capital Mogadishu have told the BBC they have counted 28 dead bodies at a hotel following a bomb attack by militants.} They said 43 others, including seven journalists, were injured after bombs exploded at the Dayah hotel – although there have been no official numbers. Somali security minister Abdirizak Omar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-32096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32096\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32096"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=32096"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=32096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}