Ethiopia admits shooting down Kenyan aircraft in Somalia

Ethiopian military forces in Somalia have admitted to shooting down a Kenyan cargo plane carrying aid supplies earlier this week, which resulted in the deaths of all the six people on board.

According to Press TV, the Ethiopian army said in a statement to the African Union (AU) on Saturday that the privately-owned Kenyan plane had been shot down by Ethiopian troops guarding a camp in the town of Bardale in southwestern Somalia.

The aircraft, belonging to African Express Airways, was carrying humanitarian and medical supplies to help Somalia in its battle against the new coronavirus outbreak when it went down in Bardale, about 300 kilometers northwest of the country’s capital of Mogadishu, on Monday.

The Ethiopian military said in the statement that the soldiers had mistakenly thought that the plane was on a “potential suicide mission” because they had not been informed about the “unusual flight” and the aircraft was flying low.

“Because of lack of communication and awareness, the aircraft was shot down,” the military said, adding that, “The incident… will require mutual collaborative investigation… from Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya to further understand the truth.”

Six people — the pilot, a copilot, a flight engineer, a trainee pilot, and two other people working for the airline — were on board the Kenyan plane and lost their lives.

Kenya at the time expressed shock over the incident and called for an urgent investigation into the fatal crash.

Ethiopia and Kenya both have soldiers deployed to Somalia as part of an AU peacekeeping mission to fight the armed militant group of al-Shabab.

ME