An explosion killed at least 15 people at Somalia's newly reopened national theatre in Mogadishu today during an event attended by government officials, the African Union force in Somalia said.
A Reuters reporter at the scene said corpses were strewn across the floor and some of the dead were still in their chairs. Ambulance workers were collecting the bodies.
"The prime minister was speaking inside the theatre when the blast took place, but he is safe, unhurt," Prosper Hakizimana, deputy spokesman for the AU's Amisom force, told Reuters.
Ambulance sirens wailed as the wounded were rushed to hospitals.
A doctor at the Madina hospital said two ministers and a member of parliament were among those hurt. Initial witness reports suggested a suicide bomber was behind the blast.
Somalia's National Theatre reopened on March 19th for the first time in 20 years, an event the government said signalled a marked improvement in security in the war-ravaged Horn of Africa country.
But al-Shabaab rebels, who pulled out of the capital last August, have continued to strike targets in the heart of the coastal city using roadside bombs, mortars and suicide bombers.
Al-Shabaab said on March 14th, after one its suicide bombers struck at the presidential palace, that more explosions and bombers would follow.
The presidential palace has come under mortar attack several times in the last two weeks. The bombs have mostly fallen short, killing civilians in nearby camps for those displaced by the violence.
Reuters