Arthur Greene
Forty-eight people have been killed and dozens more injured after two suicide bombers targeted a polling station in rural Somalia on Wednesday evening.
The target of one of the attacks appears to have been lawmaker Amina Mohamed Abdi, one of the most vocal critics of the Somali government.
Abdi, 33, was campaigning to reclaim her seat in the National Assembly on the eve of her expected re-election when, according to an eyewitness, “a suicide bomber rushed towards the member of parliament Amina and embraced her and blew himself up.
“Shots were fired in the air by the soldiers who seemed shocked, but unfortunately she instantly died at the scene,” the eyewitness, Dhaqane Hassan, told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Shortly after the explosion, a suicide car bomb blew up in the same area, killing dozens more.
“The two blasts killed 48 people including traders, clerics, officials and civilians and injured 108 others,” Ali Gudlawe Hussein, president of Hirshabelle state, said in a statement.
“The first suicide bomber targeted lawmaker Amina and those with her. And when the casualties were taken to hospital, a suicide car bomb targeted them.”
Al-Shabab, Somalia’s Islamic extremist rebel group with links to Al-Qaeda, have claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Abdi, who in her tributes is consistently described as “fearless”, had a powerful impact on her country’s politics in her short career.
She first ran for parliament in 2012, when she was just 24 years old. She defied the odds, as well as the elders from her Hawiye clan, to win the seat.
“I was asked ‘you want to be a prostitute? How can a woman represent a clan?’” she told Reuters last year.
“I insisted and said a clan is not composed only of men.”
Since then Abdi rose to become one of the most vocal and well-known critics of the government.
In impassioned speeches, she regularly called out corruption in many quarters of society.
“Somalia has lost a promising giant leader, an activist, a fearless advocate,” lawmaker Abdirizak Mohamed told the Chronicle.
Image source: @nazaninemoshiri
