ADDIS ABABA, June 8: At least 22 people were killed and hundreds wounded on Wednesday as Ethiopian police fired on crowds during protests against alleged fraud in disputed elections last month, hospital sources said. Police confirmed that 17 people had been killed and 40 wounded in clashes in the capital and defended the action as “appropriate” to stop bank robberies and attempted jail breaks during violence instigated by the opposition.

“While restoring law and order, 17 people were killed and 40 were injured, mainly from tear gas,” the police said in a statement broadcast on state radio. “Fifteen members of the police have been injured during the clash.”

But doctors at hospitals in central Addis Ababa said 22 people had been brought to their facilities dead or died shortly after arriving. At least some of the wounded said they had not been involved in any protest or criminal acts.

Eleven of the dead were at the Black Lion Hospital where at least 100 injured people, many with gunshot wounds, crowded the emergency room, according to an AFP correspondent who saw the bodies.

Another eight dead were at the Saint Paulus hospital and three, including two women, were at the Zewditu hospital, doctors at those facilities said.

A doctor at Zewditu said the hospital had treated “several hundred” people for injuries caused by bullets and the AFP correspondent said there were more than 40 injured people, most with gunshot wounds, at Saint Paulus.

The violence was the worst in the Ethiopian capital since 2001 when an extended strike by University of Addis Ababa students led to riots in which more than 30 people were killed.

The opposition accuses the ruling Ethiopian People’s Democratic Front (EPRDF) of trying to steal the polls with ballot rigging and is trying to quash the certification of provisional results by the election board.

The board had been due on Wednesday to validate those results, which give the EPRDF a majority in parliament despite significant opposition gains, but last week announced a month-long delay due to the volume of complaints it has to investigate.—AFP