Breaking News: Gunmen kill a Somali MP, wound another in Mogadishu

Hiiraan Online
Thursday, July 3, 2014

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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.

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