Widespread Condemnation of Somali University Bombing

On 3 December, a suicide bomber attacked a Benadir University graduation ceremony at the Shamo Hotel in Mogadishu, killing at least 22 people including medical students, doctors and the Somali government ministers for education, higher education and health. The explosion injured a further 90 people.

The graduates were only the second set of medical students to receive their diplomas in almost two decades. The university was set up in 2002 to train doctors after many had fled from the country or had been killed in the civil war.

Among those killed were the ministers for education, Ibrahim Hassan Adow, and higher education, Ahmed Abdullahi Wayel, according to Education International. The bombings have been linked to Al-Shabab, an extremist Islamist group with links to Al Qaida.

The Somali Prime Minister Omar Sharmarke has said: “The loss of our ministers is disastrous, but it is an outrage to target the graduation of medical students and kill those whose only aim in life was to help those most in need in our stricken country.”

NEAR joins Education International in their condemnation of the attack and would like to highlight the fundamental and inalienable right to education for all people.

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Alert - Somalia

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