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On Wednesday, (Jan 26), twin explosions rocked the Somali capital, Mogadishu, reportedly killing at least 28 and injuring 51 others. The attack hit Dayah Hotel, an establishment popular with politicians and located near the Somali parliament in Central Mogadishu.

There have been major attacks in the country, and certainly this does not fall among the worst attacks. However, with hotel guests and workers dead, journalists and bystanders injured, the harsh reality of how unsafe Somalia is becoming will soon wash away all the glory that is left in the country, a glory that was built soon after the Alshabaab fled from the capital, Mogadishu.

A sense of peace and security had soon started to become part of Somalia just after Alshabaab were chased from the capital in 2011. The turn of events thereafter gave Somalia a facelift, with new banks, hospitals and hotels being built and refurbished.  Moreover, regional conferences took place in the capital, as it hosted its first ever TEDx Talk event and Social Good Summit. The IMF and World Bank also never shut their eyes to the new developments and moreso offered to fund projects, for the first time since 1991,  that would have otherwise helped catapult the then struggling economy to a stable one.

The light at the end of the tunnel became a reality for the residents in the capital as well as the nation’s citizens.

It was a dawn of a new era. But no sooner, had rebuilding started than it ended. The short span of peace and serenity was soon replaced with anxiety, fear and loud bomb bangs! It seemed like repeating a book you had once read.

February 2015, marked the start of an unending disruption of the once celebrated peace. at least 25 people, including the deputy mayor of Mogadishu, were killed in an attack on Central Hotel. In March 2015, Somalia’s permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva was killed along with 20 others in an attack on Makka Al Mukarama Hotel. In July 2015, the luxury Jazeera Palace Hotel, which also housed diplomatic missions, including China’s, was attacked. In November 2015, at least 14 people were killed in Sahafi Hotel, which was popular with reporters covering the civil war in the 1990s. In February of 2016, an explosion targeted Mogadishu’s popular park, Peace Garden. In June 2016, 15 other people were killed and 34 others injured in Nasa Hablood Hotel.

For a long time, most attacks have been directed to the politicians, government officials as well as the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, the militants seem to have changed their tactics now that guests and other ordinary citizens have become victims of their war.

The idea of any existing peace in the country is soon fading away, but the defiance and strong will to make the nation better than it is among the citizens, gives hope for a new peaceful Somalia.

(Courtesy Quartz Africa)