Somalia is marking the first anniversary of one of the world’s deadliest attacks since 9/11, a truck bombing in the heart of Mogadishu that killed well over 500 People.
As people gathered on Sunday at a new memorial with a minute of silence, a man accused of orchestrating the bombing was executed by firing squad.
Capt. Mumin Hussein, deputy prosecutor general of the Somali military court, confirmed the execution of Hassan Aden Isaq, the first under the country’s Somali-American President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed.
Memories of the bombing are still raw in a country that has faced decades of deadly warlord-led chaos and attacks by the Al-Qeada-linked Al-Shabab extremist group. The Oct. 14, 2017 bombing was so devastating that Al-Shabab never claimed responsibility amid local outrage.
The newly arrived U.N. envoy to Somalia, Nicholas Haysom, on Sunday called it “the deadliest ever terrorist attack in Africa, and such terrorist attacks amount to a war crime.”