Monday, October 15, 2007
Local Chief of Police Colonel Abdi Adan said: "We see the tragedy that came upon those innocent children and we are investigating where the artillery shell came from and who is behind this grave incident."
Hussein Kalga'al, a resident of the town 300km north of the capital, said: "They were inside the house when an unknown explosive thing rocked the house and none of them survived. No one can tell what the hell that explosion was."
Osman Adan, another resident, said: "We could not classify the bodies of the children because the heavy artillery shell destroyed the part of the house they were playing in."
Other witnesses said that the oldest child was 12. Somalia, an impoverished country in the Horn of Africa, had been embroiled in civil war since 1991.
Islamist militants were defeated early this year by Somali troops supported by the Ethiopian army.
Since then, their fighters had carried out a string of guerrilla attacks mainly in the capital, Mogadishu, targeting government officials, Ethiopian troops and African Union peacekeepers.
Source: AFP, Oct 15, 2007