A delegate to Somali peace talks was slightly injured when a grenade was hurled at the hotel in southern Mogadishu that is the venue for the discussions, a witness said yesterday.
The device was lobbed at the Medina Hotel on Sunday, in the third incident targeting participants in the state-sponsored Somali National Reconciliation Congress.
"The grenade landed outside the hotel and slightly wounded one of the delegates," said Yusuf Salah, another delegate at the talks which -- despite UN and Western support -- have made little progress since opening on July 15.
Last week, gunmen killed a respected elder participating in the peace process, while on Saturday grenades were fire at another hotel, wounding two delegates.
"Attacks against delegates are intensifying, but I don't think we will stop our will for lasting peace. We are devoted for what brought us here," another delegate to the talks, Amina Abdullahi, said.
"We shall never surrender to those trying to undermine peace efforts," Abdullahi said.
In a separate incident yesterday, Somali police killed a suspected insurgent trying to throw a grenade in Mogadishu.
"His body is lying near the police station," said Mohammed Muhidin, a spokesman for the city's mayor.
On Sunday, a series of explosions rocked Mogadishu, killing two children and an elderly man, and wounding five other people.
Those blasts came a day after the Islamist-led militants vowed to step up their insurgency until Ethiopian forces deployed to bolster the feeble Somali government pulled out of Somalia.
Mogadishu, Somalia's epicenter of anarchy, has been hosting talks aimed at reconciling feuding factions and tightening Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed's tenuous grip on power in the impoverished nation of 10 million.
The Islamist militants and elders from Mogadishu's dominant Hawiye clan are boycotting the parley that is being backed by both the UN and Western powers.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in