At least eight people were killed in Somalia's capital Mogadishu when Islamist militants launched a suicide attack on a U.N. security convoy using a vehicle laden with explosives, officials and witnesses said
The bombing at around 7:30 a.m. was claimed by al Shabaab militants, who said they intended to strike a United Nations security convoy passing near the school.
"Schools – and any other place where children congregate – should at all times be safe for children," Mohamed Malick Fall, regional director for Eastern and Southern Africa for U.N. children's fund UNICEF, said in a statement. Police spokesman Abdifatah Aden Hassan told reporters that a suicide bomber in an SUV full of explosives had targeted the U.N. convoy.The Aamin Ambulance service evacuated at least 23 people injured in the blast, Abdikadir Abdirahman, director of the service, told Reuters.
Al Shabaab has been fighting Somalia's central government for years, seeking to take power and impose its strict interpretation of Islam's sharia law.
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