Nearly 30 people were killed and more than thirty others wounded Monday in the Somali capital of Mogadishu as African Union peacekeeping forces opened fired on a minibus after a roadside bomb exploded near one of the troops' vehicles, Deputy Mogadishu mayor confirmed to Xinhua.
"The (AU peacekeeping) forces came under a roadside bomb attack and one of their vehicles was hit, but unfortunately the forces opened fire indiscriminately at the civilians, killing thirty of them and wounding many more," Abdelfatah Ibrahim Shaweey, deputy mayor of Mogadishu, told Xinhua.
Hospital sources say nearly 14 civilians were admitted to the main Media hospital while nine dead were brought to the hospital morgue for identification.
"In our hospital we have so far received nearly 14 wounded civilians with gunshot wounds and nine bodies that was not identified at the scene of the incident," Dahir Mohamoud Mohamed, deputy director of Medina hospital told Xinhua.
Other medical centers around Mogadishu report receiving similar number of civilian casualties from the attack which occurred in the south of the restive city around a base of the African union forces.
Ba-Hoku Barigye, spokesman for the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), denied his forces were responsible for the killing of civilians, saying that after the roadside bomb attack, the forces came under intense fire to which they responded.
"There was a roadside bomb explosion and heavy gunfire from the attackers and our forces defended themselves and fired back at the attackers," Ba-Hoku Barigye told Xinhua.
The spokesman said that one of the troops sustained minor gunshot wounds and denied the number of civilian casualties given by the deputy mayor, saying there were no more than four civilian deaths from the minibus.
The AMISOM forces which currently number nearly 34,00, from Uganda and Burundi, have previously come under criticism from local clan elders for indiscriminate firing of weapons after insurgent attacks on their forces.
The forces are part of 8,000-strong UN-authorized peacekeeping troops but other African countries which pledged to contribute have not done so because of logistical and financial constraints.
(Xinhua News Agency February 3, 2009)