Eight people have been killed and an unknown number of others
wounded in the Somali capital Mogadishu after a hand grenade was
thrown in a crowd at the main Bakara Market shortly before the
government announced the imposition of an indefinite curfew,
residents said Thursday.
"A man threw a grenade at the police who were patrolling and
nearly five people were instantly killed. No policeman was hurt,
but they started to fire at every direction," Osman Haji, owner of
a grocery shop, told Xinhua.
Some people were also killed as a result of the shooting by the
police after the grenade explosion. The police would not comment
but eyewitnesses said the police started shooting following the
attack which was apparently aimed at the Somali security forces at
the market.
"Three civilians were killed when the police began to shoot and
many more were wounded by the grenade and gunshots," said Ahmed
Yasin, a shopper at Bakara, the main market in the south of the
restive seaside city.
The police, after the explosion, ordered shop owners at the
market to close down their shops and leave the market. People, both
shoppers and shop owners, began to flee from the scene.
The news comes only hours before the transitional government
announced the imposition of a dusk to dawn curfew in the capital.
The National Security Commission decided that from 7 PM until 5 AM
a curfew will be emplaced and anyone outside home will be
arrested.
The commission chairman said in a news conference in Mogadishu
that the security forces will deal with "insurgent elements who
operate behind people."
There has been an upsurge of violence since the Somali
government announced the postponement of the national
reconciliation conference until mid July.
Somalia has been without a central government since the
overthrow of late ruler Mohamed Siyad Barre in 1991 when the
country plunged into chaos until the formation of the current
transitional federal government in Nairobi in 2004 as a result of
the reconciliation conference there.
(Xinhua News Agency June 22, 2007)
