The death toll in an attack by the extremist al-Shabaab group on a hotel in the Somali port city of Kismayu has risen to at least 26, Jubbaland region’s president Ahmed Mohamed said on Saturday.
He said that three Kenyans, one Briton, two Americans and three Tanzanians, as well as a presidential candidate for August regional elections, were among those killed.
The assault saw fighters storm the hotel after targeting it with a car bomb, while local elders and lawmakers were meeting to discuss the elections.
At least two journalists and a UN agency staff member were also reported to have been killed.
The siege lasted for almost 12 hours and only ended on Saturday morning after clashes with security forces.
"The security forces are in control now and the last terrorist was shot and killed,” Mohamed Abdiweli, a security official, said.
He said authorities believed four gunmen, who one witness described as wearing Somali police uniforms, were involved in the attack.
"The whole building is in ruins, there are dead bodies and wounded who have been recovered from inside. The security forces have cordoned off the whole area," said witness Muna Abdirahman.
“Four militants attacked the hotel. One of them was the suicide car bomber, two were shot dead and one was captured alive by Jubbaland security forces,” said regional president Mohamed.
He added that 56 people had been wounded in the attack, including two Chinese citizens.
The Somalia office of the UN’s International Organization for Migration also said on Twitter one of its local staff members, Abdifatah Mohamed, was among those killed.
SADO Somalia, a local non-governmental organization, also said on Twitter its executive director Abdullahi Isse Abdulle had been killed in the attack.
A journalists’ group had confirmed on Friday that two journalists were among the dead; Somali-Canadian journalist Hodan Naleyah, the founder of Integration TV, and Mohamed Sahal Omar, reporter of SBC TV in Kismayu.
Jubbaland president Mohamed said Jama Fariid, Naleyah’s husband, had also been killed.
Mohamed Ibrahim Moalimuu, general secretary of the Federation of Somali Journalists, said in a statement: “We are saddened and outraged by this loss of life, and condemn in the strongest possible terms this appalling massacre.”
Al-Shabaab was ejected from Mogadishu in 2011 and has since been driven from most of its other strongholds.
It was driven out of Kismayu in 2012. The city’s port had been a major source of revenue for the group from taxes, charcoal exports and levies on arms and other illegal imports.
Kismayu is the commercial capital of Jubbaland, a region of southern Somalia still partly controlled by al Shabaab.
Al Shabaab remains a major security threat, with fighters frequently carrying out bombings in Somalia and neighboring Kenya, whose troops form part of the African Union-mandated peacekeeping force that helps defend the Somali government.
