A suicide bomber killed at least 13 people on Saturday outside a restaurant popular with Ethiopian and Somali troops in the town of Baladweyne in central Somalia, local officials have said.
A legislator, Dahir Amin Jesow, also told Reuters on telephone from Baladweyne that more than 10 people were wounded in the explosion near a military base.
Reports said the bomber had strapped explosives around his chest.
“A man with an explosives jacket entered unexpectedly in the tea shop where soldiers and civilians sat and blew himself up,” said another local, Ahmed Nur, who spoke from the scene of the blast.
“I can see the bodies of many soldiers being carried out, but I cannot make out whether they were dead or injured.’’
However, no one has immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
Ethiopian troops have been fighting Islamist militants in neighbouring Somalia for much of the past decade.
Meanwhile, a plane carrying parachutists for a skydiving trip crashed in Southern Belgium on Saturday, killing all 11 people aboard, officials told Associated Press.
Twenty minutes after the aircraft took off from a small airfield close to Namur, witnesses saw it lose height very quickly, then crash in a field near Fernelmont town, said its mayor, Jean-Claude Nihoul.
The skydivers “were not able to jump out,” Nihoul said in a telephone interview. Ten skydivers and the pilot were killed and no one was hurt on the ground, he said, adding that three parachutes were found near the crash site.
Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo immediately confirmed the news of the crash and said his thoughts were with the families of the victims.
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