The PM escaped unhurt but several other senior Somali officials including four MPs were injured during the attack.
Two sports officials, the head of the national Olympic committee Adan Hajji Yabarow and the chairman of the national football federation Said Mugabi are among the dead.
The two were among a group of dignitaries who had gathered to mark the first anniversary of the launch of Somalia’s national television station.
Somali officials said a female suicide bomber was behind the blast and the death toll may rise.
The head of Mogadishu’s ambulance service Ali Muse, was quoted as saying that at least 10 people were killed and dozenswounded.
Sunatimes correspondent who was attending the event said he saw four people dead, adding that two MPs, Prof. Mohamed Omar Dalha and his colleague Mowlid Ma’ane were also wounded during the incident.
Over 30 casualties are now being treated in Madina and Dar-ul-Shifa hospitals in Mogadishu, says one of our correspondents who visited these facilities.
Two journalists, a cameraman for Shabelle TV and a radio journalist working for Radio Kulmiye are said to be in critical conditions. Five other journalists who sustained injuries are also said to be in a stable condition.
Sunatimes correspondent in the rebel held Elasha Biyaha on the outskirt of Mogadishu says Al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility of the attack.
Somalia’s Information Post and Telecommunication minister Abdikadir Mohamed Hussein condemned the attack, pointing blame finger on the militant group.
He said only two people were confirmed dead, adding that investigations are now underway to establish the exact number of deaths and injuries following the attack.
The bodies of people who were totally burnt and ripped apart, including one which appeared to be the suicide bomber were seen at the scene of the explosion.
The Theatre closed in the early 1990s as Somalia descended into civil war and was reopened on March 19.
There has been a surge in suicide bombings and remotely detonated blasts in Mogadishu since Al- Shabaab pulled out of its fixed positions in city earlier last August.
Just recently, the group claimed responsibility of a car bomb that claimed the lives of at least five people and injuring several others outside a compound in Mogadishu housing Somalia’s Presidential Palace. Al-Shabaab also warned of more attacks in the city.
There have been also mortar attacks in the city late last month, with some of them slamming into refugee camps for internally displaced persons in Mogadishu, killing several civilians.
The UN-backed government is supported by nearly 10,000 African Union troops in its fight against the Al-Shabaab armed group which controls regions of the country and frequently carries out bomb attacks.
If the latest attack is proved to the handwork of Al-Shabaab, then this will be the deadliest attack in the city after the October 4 blast were over 76 people were killed.
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Several killed in a suicide attack in Mogadishu’s Somali national theater
At least seven people have been killed and several others injured in a suicide attack inside the newly-reopened national Theatre in Mogadishu on Wednesday during an event attended by senior government officials including Prime Minister Abdiweli Moham