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About 50 people killed
in separate Somalia attacks |
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MOGADISHU(August
18,2008) -
Almost 50 people were killed in Somalia after separate roadside bombs
targeting allied Ethiopian and government troops went off and led
to retaliatory attacks, residents said on Friday.
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.
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