Tuesday, August 19, 2008
"I saw two dead bodies and three women injured by mortar shells that crashed onto their house," said Faisal Ali, a resident of the Somali capital's Bakara quarter, the city's main trading centre.
Another resident, Muhubo Dahir, told an AFP correspondent on the scene that she counted seven wounded in a different location.
On Friday, more than 30 people -- mainly civilians -- were killed when Ethiopian forces opened fire on two buses near Mogadishu after being attacked three times the same day, according to witnesses.
But the Ethiopian foreign ministry denied its troops killed the civilians and put the toll at only 11.
"The tragic killings of innocent civilians on Friday were not carried out by Ethiopian troops, but rather by Al-Shabab insurgents who planted a bomb on the minibus," it said in a statement aired on national television.
The Ethiopian army rolled into Somalia in late 2006 at the request of the embattled transitional government. They ousted an Islamist militia which controlled large parts of the Horn of Africa country.
The Islamists have since reverted to guerrilla warfare and have been targeting Somali government forces, Ethiopian troops and African Union peacekeepers almost daily.
Civilians have borne the brunt of the fighting. According to international aid organisations and rights groups, at least 6,000 have died over the past year alone.
Source: AFP, Aug 19, 2008