At least 22 people died and more than 100 were wounded when Ethiopian security forces fired into crowds on a third day of unrest over last month's disputed elections, medics and witnesses said today.
Ethiopian authorities said police and troops opened fire on stone-throwing crowds who were looting shops, robbing banks, attacking police and trying to free detainees in custody.
The government blamed the main opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) for inciting the worst violence seen in Addis Ababa in four years.
"The government regrets very much," the loss of life, Information Minister Bereket Simon said. "CUD, which is the perpetrator of the violence, will have to take responsibility."
The CUD said the protests were spontaneous actions from the people which it had not orchestrated.
The shootings followed two days of student protests and weeks of rising tensions over preliminary results from the May 15th parliamentary elections, which the CUD says were rigged by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's ruling party, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).
One witness said police opened fire as he stepped from his house into the street with his brother, who was hit and injured.
"The EPRDF is killing us because we didn't vote for them," the witness, a man who only gave his name as Teopros, claimed.
Today’s killings were the worst in Addis Ababa since police and security guards killed 41 people during April 2001 riots that followed a wave of student protests.
At hospitals in the city, hundreds of relatives wept and wailed in packed wards where blood spattered on the floor from the wounded and dead brought in a steady stream by ambulances.
Medics at three hospitals said they had a total of 22 people killed by gunshot wounds.
The violence followed two days of protests in which one person was killed and hundreds arrested.
During the clashes, gunfire could be heard across the tense capital, where most shops, with the exception of bars and pharmacies, were closed.