Breaking News: Gunmen kill a Somali
MP, wound another in Mogadishu
Hiiraan Online
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Mogadishu (HOL) — Somali lawmaker
Mohamed Mohamud Heyd died while
his colleague MP Abdullahi Ahmed
Onka was seriously wounded after
gunmen sprayed a hail of bullets in a
car the two were riding with other
MPs in the Hamarweyn district of
Mogadishu.
Witnesses said that unknown
assailants drove next to the car the
MPs were riding and opened fire. Mr.
Heyd died instantly in the car after
several bullets were lodged in his
chest while Mr. Onka sustained bullet
wounds all over his body and was
transported to a nearby hospital
where he is in critical condition. Two
other MPs in the care were
unharmed.
Hamarweyn District Commissioner,
Mohamed Abdiqadir Mohamed, told
reporters that the MPs were shot as
they were driving from Hotel Central
on their way to Parliament for a
meeting. The gunmen who shot the
MPs were driving a Surf car and are
reported to have immediately fled the
scene.
“It was a drive-by shooting” said one
eye witness who explained that the
attack happened shortly after the
MPs boarded the car and entered the
road in the busy Hamarweyn
neighborhood of the city. Security
forces reached the scene of the
crime and are conducting
investigations, but they have not
made any announcement or arrested
anyone.
No one has so far claimed
responsibility for the attack, but the
al-Shabaab militia have recently
threatened to increase their attacks
on government officials during the
month of Ramadan. They have
singled out MPs for instituting un-
Islamic laws.
A parliament session scheduled for
today was postponed due to the
attack. The late Heyd becomes the
4th Somali lawmaker to be killed in
the capital in the past six months
and the first since the threatened up-
surge of attacks during Ramadan.
