People gather around rubble at the scene of a car explosion that hit Somalia’s capital Mogadishu, Somalia on Sunday. Photo by Said Yusuf Warsame
A car bomb struck outside a government office in the Somali capital of Mogadishu on Sunday, killing three soldiers and injuring 14 other people, local officials said.
The suicide bomb in the Howlwadag district also caused a nearby school to collapse, blew the roof off a mosque and destroyed homes, local officials told the BBC.
The soldiers died when they stopped the car from entering a government compound, local official Salah Hassan Omar said.
Six of those injured were children, Dr. Abdulkadir Abdirahman Aden of Mogadishu ambulance services told Voice of America.
The compound was headquarters of the district in the center of the city.
Al-Shabab, a militant group, said it carried out the attack.