MOGADISHU: Ethiopian forces opened fire on two civilian buses near the Somali capital Mogadishu yesterday, killing at least 30 passengers, witnesses said.
Ethiopian soldiers in the town of Arbiska sprayed gunfire on the two vehicles, one of which was traveling from the capital and the other from nearby Afgoye, they said.
“I saw 37 dead civilians near Arbiska, where the Ethiopian forces indiscriminately opened fire on two civilian buses,” said Ahmed Husein Mohamed, a local elder who witnessed the killings.
All the witnesses and local residents contacted by AFP gave death tolls of at least 30. They said all the victims appeared to be civilians and described scenes of carnage.
“It’s a scene of complete destruction of human life, everyone is dazed,” Mohamed said. “They killed everyone on the buses, there was blood everywhere.
It was unbearable to look at the scene,” said witness Amino Hasan Adan. She said she personally counted the bodies of 29 men, seven women and a child.
It was not immediately clear what prompted the Ethiopian troops, who are in Somalia to prop up a fragile government under attack from rebels, to open fire. The Ethiopians had come under attack three times earlier yesterday, once by a roadside bomb and twice by gunfire from the insurgents.
Hassan Sheikh Ali, a medic at the nearby Afgoye hospital, said 10 wounded were brought in following the incident. “Most of them are in shock but they explained that many civilians were indiscriminately killed,” he said.
“We have collected most of the bodies and they were identified by their relatives,” said Ali Jisow.
