MOGADISHU, Aug 14, 2007 (AFP) - Six more Somali civilians died Tuesday after being seriously wounded when Ethiopian forces opened fire on a passenger bus the previous day, medical officials said.

The soldiers had fired on the bus suspecting it was ferrying insurgents who have been waging near-daily attacks in Mogadishu since early this year.

"So far six people have died since last night of critical injuries they suffered yesterday," said Dahir Dhere, the director of Mogadishu's Medina hospital. "We have 93 more injuries in (the) hospital. All of them have bullet wounds."

The latest fatalities raise the death toll from the bus attack to 12.

The shooting erupted after a Somali soldier manning a road block accidentally fired a rocket, narrowly missing the bus and prompting the Ethiopian troops who were nearby to open fire.

Meanwhile, unknown assailants attacked an Ethiopian billet north of Mogadishu, but there were no reports of casualties, witnesses said.

"We have heard more than eight rounds of mortar shells fired near (the base). We are very near to the site but luckily no civilians were harmed," resident Nuradin Ali Hassan told AFP.

Relentless violence has dogged Mogadishu since early this year when Ethiopian forces backing Somali troops dislodged an Islamist movement, sparking an insurgency by remnants of the movement.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch has accused the two sides of committing war crimes.

The rights watchdog said between 400 and 1,300 civilians have been killed and some 400,000 displaced.

Instabiity in Somalia has defied more than a dozen attempts to restore peace since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre that sparked anarchic bloodletting.

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