By Tsegaye Tadesse

Addis Ababa - Three people were shot dead in the Ethiopian capital on Thursday, doctors said, in a third straight day of political unrest that has killed at least 42 people and stirred fears for the country's stability.

The violence has prompted Britain to warn its citizens against non-essential travel to Ethiopia and both the European Union (EU) and African Union have urged government and opposition parties to show restraint.

Witnesses said police opened fire to disperse anti-government protests in several pockets of unrest across the city, a bastion of opposition groups which accuse Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of rigging his way back to power at polls on May 15.

'We are very scared'

Medical sources originally put the death toll from the previous day's clashes between riot police and opposition supporters at 31.

But doctors said on Thursday that, in addition to the three killed on Thursday, the overnight death toll among those wounded on Tuesday and Wednesday had risen to eight from three.

"We have one person dead. He was 19 years old and hit in the chest," a doctor in Zewditu Hospital said.

Another doctor in the Black Lion hospital said a 60-year-old man was killed in an eastern suburb of Addis Ababa.

A third doctor said a man in his 20s was shot a few kilometres from St Paul's Hospital and was dead on arrival.

Many of the wounded said they were not part of the unrest.

"I was shot while I was trying to enter my house. The shooting was indiscriminate. They were attacking children and women," said Mengistu Dagagnew, 24, lying on a stretcher in Zewditu hospital and holding his own drip aloft.

Abebetch Ayenew sobbed as she waited for news about her 11-year-old daughter, sent to an operating theatre to remove a bullet from her chest.

"She went out of the house - there was shooting outside - to check what was happening and then she was shot," Abebetch said.

Police have also detained scores of people including human rights activists, residents said.

The violence broke out on Tuesday when riot police clashed with demonstrators apparently heeding a call by the opposition Coalition for Democracy and Unity (CUD) for renewed protests against the May 15 poll it says was rigged.

"From last evening police have been rounding up CUD zonal leaders and human rights activists," said Adam Melaku of the Ethiopian Human Rights Council.

"We are very scared."

Residents said police went from house to house picking up mainly young men suspected of involvement in the violence, which followed months of worsening tensions between the government and opposition.

Information minister Berhan Hailu confirmed the arrests but did not say how many had been detained.

He repeated an accusation that CUD leaders were responsible for stoking the bloodshed.

"There is no witch-hunt against CUD members except those involved in inciting violence," he said.

Foreign observers broadly endorsed the poll results but noted some irregularities.

Diplomats regarded the May election as a crucial test of Meles's commitment to bringing democracy to a country still struggling to shake off the effects of centuries of feudalism, followed by nearly 20 years of Marxism under dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam.

Washington condemned "cynical, deliberate" attempts to stoke violence and urged the opposition not to provoke unrest.

It also urged the government to probe the unrest and free all detainees.

Both the United States and the EU urged the CUD to use peaceful means to pursue its grievances and to take up its seats in parliament, something it has refused to do.

• This article was originally published on page 8 of The Cape Times on November 04, 2005

Published on the Web by IOL on 2005-11-04 06:25:00