Three people were shot dead in the Ethiopian capital yesterday, doctors said, in a third straight day of political unrest that has killed at least 42 people and stirred fears for the giant African country's stability.

The violence has prompted Britain to warn its citizens against non-essential travel to Ethiopia and both the European Union and African Union urged government and opposition in the country to show restraint.

Witnesses said police in Addis Ababa opened fire to disperse anti-government protests in several pockets of unrest across the city, a bastion of opposition groups which accuse Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of rigging his way back to power at polls in May.

Doctors said that in addition to the three killed yesterday, the overnight death toll among those wounded on Tuesday and Wednesday had risen to eight from three.

"We have one person dead. He was 19 years old and hit in the chest," a doctor in Zewditu Hospital said.

Another doctor in the Black Lion hospital said a 60-year-old man was killed in unrest in an eastern suburb of Addis Ababa.

A third doctor said a man in his 20s was shot a few kilometres from St Paul's Hospital and was dead on arrival. Many of the wounded said they were not part of the unrest.

"I was shot while I was trying to enter my house. The shooting was indiscriminate. They were attacking children and women," said 24-year-old Mengistu Dagagnew, lying on a stretcher in Zewditu hospital and holding his own drip aloft.

Abebetch Ayenew sobbed as she waited for news about her 11-year-old daughter, sent to an operating theatre to remove a bullet from her chest.

"She went out of the house, there was shooting outside, to check what was happening and then she was shot," Abebetch said.

Police have detained scores of people including human rights activists, residents said.

The violence broke out on Tuesday when riot police clashed with demonstrators.