Security forces opened fire on a crowd at a soccer game in Somalia after ``provocateurs'' began stoning the president, a Somali official said Tuesday. Diplomatic sources said at least 65 people were killed, but the Somali government said only three people died. Unofficial fatality estimates in Friday's shootings in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, range as high as 109, according to one diplomatic source, who said 65 people were confirmed dead at the city's Digfer Hospital. More than 100 people were seriously injured, another source said. But Abbudllahi Farah Barre, first secretary at the Somali Embassy in Rome, insisted only three people were killed in the stadium shooting. He said he did not have exact figures on the number of injured. He said security forces opened fire after ``some provocateurs'' began throwing rocks at President Mohammed Siad Barre. He said the security forces first fired in the air, then on the crowd as it continued to throw rocks and began to pelt security officers. On Saturday, the Somali Ministry of Labor, Sports and Social Affairs dismissed the incident as a ``chance accident'' and said it had sent condolences to the victims' families. It also said three people were killed. The ministry blamed the incident on crowding and said people had been hit by bullets when security forces fired ``high into the air'' to maintain peace. International telephone connections to Somalia were not working Tuesday and it was not immediately possible to contact anyone in Mogadishu. Somalia is an impoverished nation on the Horn of Africa. In recent years, the government steadily has lost control of much of the nation's countryside to insurgencies and warring clans. Siad Barre has ruled the predominantly Moslem nation since seizing power in a coup in 1969.
