(Mogadishu, Aug 15,  2008 Ceegaag Online)

US-backed Ethiopian soldiers have killed at least 43 civilians in two separate incidents in the Somali capital of Mogadishu and Arbiska.

The soldiers sprayed bullets on two passenger-filled buses in the town of Arbiska killing 37 civilians, AFP reported.

A Press TV correspondent, meanwhile, reported that Ethiopian soldiers killed six more civilians south of the capital, when an unidentified assailant threw hand grenades at their convoy.

The soldiers reportedly stopped their vehicles and chased the attacker into a residential where they broke into a house and killed six people including two children.

Somalia has been without an effective central government since President Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991. In 2006, US-backed Ethiopian troops invaded the country in an attempt to back Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG).

Spiraling violence has ever since plagued the country, resulting in the loss of 7,000 lives and leaving many others homeless.

Source: AP

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