52 killed in Somali fighting
At least 52 people were killed and 120 were wounded in heavy fighting today in the Somali capital, a human rights group and hospital officials said.
Fighting between Islamic insurgents and Ethiopian troops backing the government had stopped overnight, but both sides were again battling by this morning.
Somalia’s Elman Human Rights Organisation said Mogadishu residents, hospital workers and human rights workers reported at least 52 civilians were killed and many wounded today.
Somalia’s Elman Human Rights Organisation reported that three days of fighting between Wednesday and Friday had killed at least 113 civilians and wounded 229 people. The UN refugee agency reported that hundreds of thousands of Mogadishu residents had already fled the city’s violence.
Local radio stations reported that the insurgents and Ethiopians engaged in street battles mainly in the capital’s southern and northern districts.
One station, HornAfrik, was hit by a mortar shell. A reporter and a technician were injured, said colleague Abdullahi Kulmiye. After the hit, the station went off the air.
Hundreds of women, children and men walked or got on to trucks to flee to safer parts of Mogadishu, such as its northern outskirts, or to leave the city altogether for southern or central Somalia towns.
Those travelling on foot carried on their heads cooking utensils, bedding and clothes wrapped in sheets. Some looked weak and said they had not eaten for days.
“I prefer to flee my home to a safe place to avoid the shelling,” said a mother of eight who only gave her name as Faduma. She said that she had not eaten for two days and during March battles between the insurgents and Ethiopians, her husband and firstborn daughter were killed.
“It is better to die in a safe place hungry and thirsty than to wait for mortar shells,” said Faduma, whose home is in the northern Mogadishu area of Kungal, a known insurgent base, and the scene of some of the heaviest fighting in recent days.
On Friday, the UN refugee agency revised its estimate of the number of people who fled Mogadishu since February to 321,000, up from 218,000, saying the additional figures were from new information about Mogadishu residents who had fled to central Somalia towns.
Mogadishu’s population is estimated to be two million people.
