Mogadishu, February 01: At least 17 people have lost their lives and more than 60 others have been wounded in a shooting incident in the Somali capital of Mogadishu.
The incident happened on Monday when a soldier fired on a crowd with an anti-aircraft machinegun, a Media correspondent quoted witnesses as saying.
The soldier is said to have accidentally triggered the large-caliber machinegun after a quarrel with other soldiers.
It was not immediately clear what caused the dispute among the soldiers.
Hospital sources said civilians accounted for most of the victims, adding around sixty people suffered injuries in the deadly shootout who were taken to Mogadishu’s Madina hospital,
The Somali capital has witnessed years of violence and chaos amid unrelenting efforts by militants to overthrow the UN-backed Somali government.
The country’s defense minister has promised to prosecute the perpetrators.
Over the past two decades, up to one million people have lost their lives in the tug of war among rival factions, and due to famine and disease.
There are more than 1.4 million internally displaced people in Somalia, with more than 300,000 sheltering in Mogadishu alone.
Most of the displaced live in poor and degrading conditions on makeshift sites in southern and central Somalia, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
——–Agencies