A suicide bomber wearing an explosives vest hit a busy tea shop in Mogadishu on Friday, killing at least five people, a police spokesman told VOA.

Witnesses said the bomber targeted the tea shop inside an internally displaced persons camp, known as Dervish, in Mogadishu’s Wardhigley district, which is close to the premises of the country’s parliament.

“We were just in our daily routine. We were having tea and talking about sports when a man wearing an explosive vest rushed into the tea shop, shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ [God is great], then he blew himself up,” Mohamed Sheikh Abdi, an eyewitness who survived the attack, told VOA.

According to residents familiar with the area, the tea shop is frequented by some government soldiers and civil servants.

In an interview with VOA, Sadiq Adan Ali Dodishe, spokesperson for the Somali police, said civilians were the target of the attack and that no government soldier or staff was harmed.

“An al-Shabab suicide bomber targeted civilians chatting and enjoying at a tea shop, killing five people and six others wounded,” he said. “It is not new to us; it is something the militants have been doing for years.”

Friday’s attack came a day after militants killed at least six people and wounded more than 15 in a car bombing in Somalia’s central Hirshabelle state.

The perpetrator targeted a busy meat market in Bulobarde town, 220 kilometers north of Mogadishu.

In a separate incident on Thursday, security forces prevented double suicide car bomb attacks targeting Dhusamareb, a town 280 kilometers to the north, killing the drivers of two vehicles loaded with explosives, officials said.

Days before, an explosives-laden vehicle detonated at a security checkpoint in the central Somalia city of Beledweyne, killing at least 18.
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