Police shot and killed two people and wounded 12 others on Thursday, the fourth day of protests against Ethiopia’s disputed parliamentary elections, doctors said.
The renewed violence came a day after police shot dead at least 29 people and wounded dozens more, according to doctors who said the previous death toll of 23 rose after six people died overnight in hospitals.
Thursday’s victims were shot at Old Airport, a wealthy neighbourhood where many foreign expatriates live, according to doctors at the Black Lion and Zewditu hospitals. Sporadic gunfire was heard near the French and Dutch embassies. Elsewhere in Addis Ababa, stone-throwing protesters had earlier defied a heavy military presence.
The wounded includes a seven-year-old girl who lost an eye after police hit her with a baton. An 11-year-old boy, Yarad Wubetu, was shot in the stomach.
The boy was shot when he came out of his home to watch police chasing a group of young men, said his mother, Lomi Bayia, a 33-year-old seamstress.
”I had told him not to leave the house, but he is a small boy and he was interested because of all the noise,” she said. ”Yarad was shot for no reason.”
Businesses were closed and taxis were off the streets.
The violence erupted over protests of May 15 elections, which had been seen as a test of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s commitment to reform and gave Meles’s Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front control of nearly two-thirds of Parliament.
Opposition parties say the vote and counting were marred by fraud, intimidation and violence, and accuse the ruling party of rigging the elections.
Wednesday, doctors at five hospitals said the bodies of 23 people killed in the clashes were brought to emergency rooms and at least 150 people were treated for injuries, including a seven-year-old boy who was shot in the hip. Doctors refused to give their names for fear of reprisals.
Information Minister Berhan Hailu said the figures are exaggerated. He said 11 civilians and one police officer were killed, and 54 officers and 28 civilians injured.
Adam Melaku, head of the independent Ethiopian Human Rights Council, on Wednesday said his group believes at least eight people were killed in the fighting.
Berhan said the government is ”sorry and sad” for the violence, but he blamed it on the main opposition party. The capital, a city of three million, is an opposition stronghold.
There were reports of police going house-to-house late on Wednesday and early on Thursday, detaining young men. Diplomats said about 2 000 people had been arrested.
The protests began peacefully on Monday, when tax drivers hooted their horns to show support for the opposition. Thirty of the drivers were arrested, which may have sparked protests on Tuesday that deteriorated into clashes between protesters and police that killed eight people and wounded 43 others.
Amid the protests, a New York-based media watchdog said authorities have threatened to arrest journalists and made statements that could endanger independent reporters in the capital. The government also appears to be using state media to smear foreign and independent media.
Several editors and publishers had gone into hiding since the government threatened to detain leaders of the Ethiopian Free Press Journalists’ Association and reporters it accused of being mouthpieces for the main opposition party, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
International development agency ActionAid said on Thursday police had detained its policy manager in Ethiopia, Daniel Bekele, for three days without charge or access to his lawyer. Other civil society leaders have also been detained during a crackdown on organisations suspected of not being pro-government.
”This has taken many of us aback and we trust that good conscience would prevail and the Ethiopian government would release Daniel and other civil society members,” said Brian Kagoro of ActionAid’s Kenya office. — Sapa-AP