MOGADISHU (AFP) — Two Somalis were killed and at least ten were wounded Tuesday when Ethiopian Woyanne forces riposted with mortar shells after an Islamist insurgent attack at Mogadishu’s main market, witnesses said.
“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 Woyanne forces opened fire on two buses near Mogadishu after being attacked three times the same day, according to witnesses.
But the Ethiopian Woyanne foreign ministry denied its troops killed the civilians and put the toll at only 11.
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.