NAIROBI: Diplomats from the UAE Embassy in Somalia have donated blood to help those injured in the Mogadishu bombings on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the Shaikh Zayed Hospital in Mogadishu continues to receive dozens of wounded, with medical staff treating various kinds of injuries. The hospital was inaugurated in June 2015, offering free healthcare to hundreds of patients each day.
Somalia is in desperate need of donated blood to treat survivors of a truck bombing in the capital Mogadishu on Saturday that killed more than 300 people and injured at least 400 others, a minister said.
The bombing was one of the worst such attacks in Somalia.
Officials said it bore the hallmarks of the Al Qaida-linked Al Shabaab group, but they have not claimed responsibility.
Information Minister Abdirahman Omar Osman said Somalia does not have a blood bank and that the limitations of its health care system was impeding the medical response.
“We are requesting blood, we are requesting assistance for verifying the dead in order for their relatives to know,” Osman told Reuters by phone from Mogadishu.
Somalia has been mired in conflict since 1991, when clan warlords overthrew a dictator then turned on each other. One of the poorest countries in Africa, it faces severe food insecurity and relies on foreign donors to support its institutions and basic services.
Osman said the bodies of more than 100 people buried on Monday “were blown beyond recognition”, and that he hoped other bodies could still be identified.
Turkish doctors — mainly surgeons and specialists in spine injuries — arrived along with Turkey’s health minister on Monday.
“They are treating people in hospitals in Mogadishu,” the minister said.
Turkey evacuated 35 critically wounded Somalis to Ankara by plane on Monday, the country’s deputy prime minister Recep Akdag told reporters upon returning from Somalia.
