Mogadishu Domestic Service radio (in English) — 1215 GMT

[Text] Twenty-five ambassadors and other foreign diplomats in Somalia, journalists, representatives of world news agencies and radio newsmen lately visiting Loyada returned here yesterday evening. The group were on a mission to witness human and material damage inflicted upon the inhabitants of the village after the unprovoked French mercenary attack.

Interviewed by SONNA and Radio Mogadishu reporters, some ambassadors expressed their disgust over the unprovoked French attack on the innocent and harmless village dwellers. The Cuban ambassador told the reporters that this open aggression by the French was symbolic of problems posed by colonialism.

The Kuwaiti and Vietnamese ambassadors contended that they had witnessed the remnants of the inhumane attack on the defenseless inhabitants of the village. The ambassadors interviewed showed disgust and horror at the act of French colonialism and wished the Somali people success in their struggle.

While at the scene of the attack, some of the ambassadors are reported to have examined damage inflicted upon the Somali inhabitants of Loyada village. The ambassadors and international newsmen inspected the school bus formerly holding the kidnapped French students. They further inspected the houses hit by the French tanks in action and in particular a damaged mosque and broken vehicles. Bloodstains were seen in the areas where inhabitants of the village were massacred.

A SONNA reporter accompanying the diplomats, Challe Ahmad Kenyatta, said he observed that the bus of the kidnapped French students was only at a distance of 10 steps from the border of the Somali Democratic Republic and bullet marks were obviously seen on the side of the bus facing the Djibouti frontier. The interior of the bus was also bloodstained.

The question the ambassadors repeatedly asked each other after their inspection of the bus was how (word indistinct) that French students could have survived in such a dangerous scene.