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Seven children killed in Somalia shelling
Seven children were among ten people killed in shelling by Somali government forces in Mogadishu Wednesday as the troops backed by African Union peacekeepers fired mortars into districts held by insurgents.
The seven children were struck by shells while playing football in the capital's southern Wardhigley neighbourhood, witnesses and medical officials said.
"I saw the bodies of seven children killed after a mortar shell struck a playground near... a primary school," said Mohamed Abdulle, a witness.
Two other civilians died of their wounds in the city's Medina hospital where 13 people were taken for treatment, the hospital's director Mohamed Yusuf Hasan told AFP, while another civilian was killed by a stray bullet.
The shelling was in retaliation for an attack by the militants who had fired shells at the bases of the AU and government forces, said Mohamed Ali, a Somali government security official.