Dozens dead in Ethiopia clash

Ethiopian security forces clashed with protesters on the streets of Addis Ababa on Wednesday, killing at least two dozen people and wounding 150 in an escalation of the discord over the results of the May parliamentary elections.

Witnesses described hundreds of police officers and soldiers sweeping through the streets, rounding up young men suspected to be linked to the opposition that is challenging the governing party's victory.

Earlier in the week, the police killed six opposition protesters in clashes. Two police officers were also killed in the protests. In June, an earlier round of anti-government protests led to the shooting of 36 people by the police.

Information Minister Berhanu Hailu said that he was "sorry and sad" for the violence, according to an AP report, but he disputed the notion that the police were quick to resort to force and called opposition politicians the instigators of the violence.

The police have begun rounding up many of those leaders, arresting them in a campaign to stop protests that runs the risk of angering the opposition further.

The clashes in Ethiopia were the worst in a string of police crackdowns on protesters in East Africa in recent days. Kenya and Tanzania have also been shaken by deadly campaign-related violence in the last week.

When Kenyan police officers planned security arrangements for a political rally last week, they agreed that tear gas, rubber bullets and clubs would be used to control the crowd, not live ammunition.

But something went awry after protesters began filling the streets of Kisumu last Saturday, throwing stones at officers and setting bonfires to protest a proposed Constitution. Despite their plans, riot police officers shot live bullets into the crowd, killing four people and wounding as many as 30.

It was an all-too-common occurrence, one that would probably have ended right there had one of the victims not turned out to be the son of one of the police officials in the planning meeting. The grieving father is now demanding answers about how his son, a 13-year-old wearing a school uniform and carrying books, ended up with bullet fragments in the back of the head.

"If the instruction was not to use live ammunition, why did it happen?" asked police inspector Kennedy Limera Omutere, a 16-year veteran of the Kenyan police, as he made funeral arrangements for his son. "They shot an innocent boy who was unarmed. They shot other people who were not involved in the riots."