MOGADISHU, Somalia Aug 16 (Garowe Online) - M ore than 50 people were killed in Somalia's capital Mogadishu since Thursday in some of the worst violence in weeks, Radio Garowe reported.

Fighting sparked Thursday afternoon along a key road that connects Mogadishu's Aden Adde International Airport and the Villa Somalia presidential palace after suspected insurgents attacked government security forces.

The road was closed as President Abdullahi Yusuf and Prime Minister Nur "Adde" Hassan Hussein traveled to the airport on their way to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where the African Union plans to mediate between the two leaders. [ Full story]

One Ethiopian soldier was killed in the initial blast. Four civilians were killed when the Ethiopian soldiers opened gunfire afterwards, according to witnesses.

In a separate attack, two Ethiopian soldiers and three civilians were killed when a hidden landmine exploded, destroying an army vehicle and a civilian car near Arbiska area.

Ethiopian troops traveling in the southern outskirts of Mogadishu came under attack Friday afternoon, when at least three explosions targeted the army convoy.

The soldiers opened gunfire indiscriminately on two buses full of civilians, killing at least 40 people. Witnesses confirmed to Radio Garowe that "many women and children" were among the dead.

"We were busy burying the dead this morning [Saturday]," said a man who did not want to be named.

Medical sources at hospitals in Afgoye and Daynile said 30 and 50 wounded people were admitted since Thursday to the two hospitals, respectively.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians fled Mogadishu violence and reside in meager conditions along the road that connects the capital to the agricultural town of Afgoye, 30km to the south.

Somalia's interim government, backed by Ethiopian troops, is violently opposed by Islamist rebels who have vowed to wage a bloody insurgency until foreign troops are expelled from Somali soil.

Source: Garowe Online