Calm returns to Somali capital after militias sign ceasefire
A ceasefire today allowed residents to venture into the streets of a northern Mogadishu neighbourhood that has been a battleground for more than a week in Somalia.
They recovered seven bodies that had been lying for days in a no man’s land separating Islamic militiamen from their secular rivals.
The battle for parts of Mogadishu, described as the worst fighting in more than a decade of lawlessness, has left 280 people wounded and forced thousands to flee their homes. Doctors said most of the dead were civilians killed in crossfire.
Late yesterday, the chairman of the radical Islamic Court Union militias and a senior commander for the secular fighters agreed to stop the bloodletting after clan elders threatened to unleash their own combatants on whichever side violated the ceasefire.
Despite signs that the ceasefire was holding, many people were wary of returning to their homes. Militiamen were still deployed at defensive positions.
Traditional elders who brokered the ceasefire prepared to meet the two sides to discuss the withdrawal of fighters from the battle zone, said Hussein Ahmed Kabare, a clan elder involved in the initiative.
Somalia has had no effective central government since 1991, after opposition leaders toppled dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. They then turned on each other, carving the nation of an estimated eight million people into clan-based fiefdoms.
A UN-backed transitional government has tried in recent months to assert control from Baidoa, 150 miles west of Mogadishu because the capital is considered unsafe.
The Islamic fundamentalists have portrayed themselves as the force capable of bringing order to the Horn of Africa country. They have built up their forces as part of a campaign to install an Islamic government in Somalia and have established a system of courts.
The secular alliance, which includes ministers in the transitional government but acts independently of it, accuses the Islamists of having ties to al-Qaida. The Islamic group says the warlords are puppets of the United States.
Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, who signed the truce on behalf of the Islamic fighters, and Nuur Daqle, who signed for the secular Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-terrorism, refused to meet face-to-face, underlying the depth of animosity between the sides.
Fighting in Somalia traditionally has largely been along clan lines and economically motivated, but the current battle appears to be all the fiercer because it is over whether Somalia should be governed by Islamic law.
The courts are popular in parts of Mogadishu because in recent years they have provided the only form of order in parts of the city, although in the past they have always been divided along clan lines. They are also considered to be fighting for Somalia, not an outside force.
