Subject: Ethiopian troops accused of killing 65 civilians near capital

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Subject: Ethiopian troops accused of killing 65 civilians near capital

Posted on: Sat, 16 Aug 2008 08:10:52 +0000 (UTC)

The bodies of 50 civilians killed by Ethiopian forces were seen this
morning near Arbiska area on the outskirt of Mogadishu eyewitnesses
told Shabelle.

The bodies were located at streets and bush areas around it, some of
them had been shot, while others seemed to have been beaten to death.

Local residents Shabelle that the dead had been seized Ethiopian
forces as they were traveling with two civilian vehicles from Afgoi
district 30km south of Mogadishu to the capital.

In one clash on Friday afternoon, Ethiopian troops opened fire on
civilians on a road out of Mogadishu when an explosion occurred in the
middle of their convoy.

"I heard a big explosion and a vehicle in an Ethiopian convoy
exploded," said Abdirahman Adan, who lives alongside the road out of
the capital to the southern town of Afgooye.

"Ethiopian soldiers in the convoy started to shoot indiscriminately. I
ran away, but when I came back half an hour later, I saw 38 people had
died and 16 injured."

Adan said some of the dead had been passengers on buses that travel
the route.

Another local resident, Hawa Abdi, said a relative was wounded during
the incident. She saw five people that had died from the attack and 20
others who were hurt.

"We wanted to reach Mogadishu's big hospital but we are unable to pass
the streets because the road is closed," she said.

In a separate attack, about five people were killed when a roadside
bomb exploded as government troops checked out a street ahead of a
presidential motorcade.

President Abdullahi Yusuf, his estranged Prime Minister Nur Hassan
Hussein and parliamentary speaker were heading for Addis Ababa in
Ethiopia for talks over a growing rift between the two leaders. They
later managed to leave the country, officials said.

Yusuf's fragile interim government is struggling to assert its
authority in the face of a 20-month Iraqi-style insurgency. Somalia
has witnessed unending violence since former strongman Mohamed Siad
Barre was ousted in 1991.

The attacks came a day before a separate U.N.-brokered peace talks
begun in neighbouring Djibouti.

The violence in Somalia has already claimed the lives of more than
8,000 civilians and driven 1 million from their homes since January
2007.

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