The number of dead as a result of the car bomb attack on a cafe in the Somali capital Mogadishu is at least 9 people, France Press reported, citing sources from the security forces, quoted by BTA.
The explosion took place next to a cafe-restaurant crowded with people who were watching the final of the Euro 2024 football championship on television.
"We have confirmed that at least nine civilians died and another 20 were injured in the blast,'' Mohamed Yusuf, an official at the national security agency, told AFP. "Five people died outside the building and on the main road, including drivers of cars passing through the area, and another four people died inside the cafe," according to Mohamed Salad, a Somali police official.
Previous figures were for five dead.
Photos posted online show a huge fireball and plumes of smoke rising into the night sky over Mogadishu after the explosion at a popular downtown eatery.
"A car bomb exploded this (Sunday) evening in front of the restaurant "Top buckets" ... planted by the terrorists," the national news agency Sonna reported last night, using a term used by the authorities to refer to the radical Islamist group Al-Shabaab.
Driven out of the main cities in 2011-2012, al-Qaeda-linked groups are fighting against the central government in Mogadishu, but retain control over vast rural areas in the central and southern parts of the country, from where they carry out attacks, AFP recalls.< /p>