Death toll rises to 276 in Somalia's worst bomb attack

Hundreds of Somalis marched in the streets of Mogadishu on Sunday to protest a deadly blast that killed 276 people in a busy shopping district in the country’s deadliest single bomb attack. About 300 others were reported injured in the attack, Information Minister Abdirahman O. Osman said. It occurred when a truck carrying explosives detonated Saturday in a crowded street packed with cars and pedestrians, near government ministries and hotels. Demonstrators on Sunday included many women in flowing gowns, protesting an attack that the Somali government blamed on the Al Qaeda-linked Shabab, a Somali extremist group that has carried out many similar attacks in the past. No one had claimed responsibility for the attack.
The death toll rose sharply Sunday as bodies were recovered, many of them burned in cars and nearby buildings. Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo said the attack showed Somalia’s enemies cared nothing for human lives.
"Today's horrific attack proves our enemy would stop [at] nothing to cause our people pain and suffering. Let’s unite against terror,” he tweeted. The president declared three days of mourning and called on citizens to donate blood as hospitals struggled to save critically injured civilians.
After the president visited Medina Hospital on Sunday morning to give blood and comfort victims, hundreds more Somalis flocked to hospitals to donate blood. Relatives of missing people arrived at hospitals Sunday desperate for news of loved ones. Others wandered around the ruins of buildings hit by the blast. Many of the dead had not been identified, with dozens burned beyond recognition.
With Mogadishu hospitals overwhelmed, the Turkish government sent a plane to evacuate patients to Turkey for medical treatment.
The blast was detonated near the entrance of the Safari Hotel. One of the Shabab’s common tactics is to attack hotels, blasting through the main entrance with a vehicle bomb and following up with attacks by gunmen going from floor to floor, executing people. Despite a blast wall, the hotel was shattered into piles of rubble.
The U.S. government condemned the “cowardly” attack.