Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Deputy Mayor of Mogadishu Abdifatah Ibrahim has said Ugandan soldiers who are part of an African Union peacekeeping mission, AMISOM, fired into a crowd on Monday on a packed road in Mogadishu and killed at least 36 people.
The alleged shooting came after a roadside bomb targeting the peacekeepers exploded, killing three civilians and injuring a Ugandan soldier.
Kiyonga, who was quoted by the state-owned New Vision daily saying that he doubted whether it was the AU soldiers who had opened fire on the civilians.
The defense minister said he had asked the commandant of the AMISON, Maj. Gen. Francis Okello, to explain the involvement of the Ugandan army in the incident.
If the explanation was not sufficient, a board of inquiry would be instituted, he added.
Maj. Ba-Hoku Barigye, the AMISOM spokesman, was quoted by Daily Monitor as saying that the civilians were killed by gunfire from insurgents.
"As a result of the explosion on our vehicle and the random shooting, some civilians were killed but not from the peacekeepers' fire because we restrained ourselves from retaliating."
He said from Mogadishu that "the figure of the casualties was exaggerated."
On Saturday, Somali MPs elected moderate Islamist Sheikh Sharif Ahmed as the new president to stabilize the country.
However, the hard-line Islamists in the country have vowed to continue their attacks.
Militants have targeted AU forces. Six Ugandan peacekeepers have been killed since the first Ugandan contingent was deployed in the lawless country in March 2007.
The Commission of the African Union condemned the attacks in a statement issued on Tuesday by its chairperson Jean Ping.
The statement released as African leaders met for the 12th AU Summit in Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, described the attack as "barbaric and cowardly".
A total of 8,000 African Union peacekeepers are required in Somalia but only 3,000 troops from Uganda and Burundi have been deployed. Uganda has decided to deploy another battalion of about 700 soldiers in the volatile country to fill a vacuum created by Ethiopia's withdrawal early this year.
Source: Xinhua, Feb 04, 2009