Multiple fatalities reported after minibus hits landmine in southern Somalia

At least 10 people were killed and two others wounded on Friday when the bus they were travelling in struck a landmine in Somalia, security officials and residents said.

The victims were heading to the southern port city of Kismayo when an explosion ripped through their vehicle as it hit what was believed to be a landmine, local security official Mohamed Nur Dahir told AFP by phone.

"This was a horrible incident, ten people -- all of them innocent civilians -- were killed and two others wounded in the explosion which destroyed the minibus they were traveling in," he said.

"Terrorists plant mines along the road used by civilian transport, and this is not the first time they have done so," he added.

Many of the victims were taken to Kismayo for treatment, city resident Abdukadir Mohamed Weli told AFP that.

Resident Osman Gelle, who arrived at the scene after the blast, said: "Some of the victims were camel milk sellers from villages" near Kismayo.

Kismayo was a former stronghold of the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab terrorist group, which frequently attacks civilian and government targets in the country.

In December 2020, five people died when the bus they had boarded hit a landmine in southern Somalia.

In September 2020, a suicide bomber killed five Somali soldiers and seriously wounded an American military adviser in a village outside Kismayo.

Al-Shabaab was driven out of Somalia's capital Mogadishu in 2011 but continues to wage a deadly insurgency against the federal government.