Car bomb at grocer’s

Port Selao

My hands won’t stop shaking. Only 2 hours ago, I was writing up my previous blog when I felt the wind knocked out of me. I collapsed to the floor sure that I was suffering a massive heart attack. I couldn’t move, couldn’t hear a sound. Then slowly a loud ringing filled my head. It took me several minutes, I don’t know how long, to register the glass and dust scattered throughout my room.  That’s when I realized I wasn’t having a heart attack. Something else happened outside.  My hotel window had shattered.

From where I lay, I could only see the sky out the window. Shreds of paper floated through the air and the first thought came to me: a bomb. Still unable to hear anything, I crawled to the window and cautiously peered out. Half a block away, I spotted the black ruins of a car bomb. The ground was strewn with burning oil and dead bodies. People were running around in a panic. Absolute mayhem. Someone had struck a family grocer. Moments before, that corner of the street was home to one of the few surviving grocers. It’s where everyone went for supplies. I myself had been there that morning.

The car was a black inferno. A burning charred body lay lifeless next to the vehicle. I saw a young boy calling for his missing football, his right arm shorn clean from his body. I found a woman’s hand in the middle of the road, curled into a fist, the index finger pointing up to the heavens.

NGOs and local citizenry braved the fires to help the survivors but they lacked the necessary medical supplies and support vehicles. No doubt more lives were needlessly lost.