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Residents flee war-torn Mogadishu

Heavy weapons fire rattled the Somali capital for a fourth day yesterday but with much less intensity, allowing residents who had been trapped since Thursday by the pitched battles to flee.

In the Ali Kamin neighborhood and the stadium area, where the fighting between the Ethiopian army and Islamist insurgents had been particularly fierce, residents were leaving their devastated homes, some with a few meager belongings, others with nothing at all.

Shells were still crashing down on residential areas and sporadic sniper fire rang out.

"There is still fighting over here. There are tanks everywhere. Shells are landing everywhere and this is very scary," said Hussein Ali, a resident of southern Mogadishu.

"There are very few residents in the battle zone. I cannot confirm the exact casualties, but a lot of people have been killed and others wounded," he added.

A correspondent saw the bodies of six civilians lying in the street.

In the stadium area, the scene of one of the deadliest clashes, homes had been totally destroyed by artillery fire and tanks.

In Ali Kamin, the burnt-out remains of an Ethiopian army truck could be seen, with the dead bodies of two soldiers lying nearby. An Ethiopian army tank was in position on the main crossroads and the charred remains of seven burnt-out civilian trucks could be seen.

No toll is available for the fighting since the Ethiopian army launched its drive to rid the capital of hostile militia, but the International Committee of the Red Cross estimates that dozens of civilians have been killed.

According to a toll compiled from witnesses and hospitals at least 70 people had been killed by yesterday. The fighting is the worst the city has seen for 15 years.

Residents said the toll could be much higher as other areas remained inaccessible.

The Ethiopians launched their offensive on Thursday against the remnants of an Islamist movement it helped the Somali transitional government to topple earlier this year and which has continued to carry out guerrilla-style attacks.

Since then, the Ethiopian and government troops faced a new kind of threat: Scattered militia, often in civilian dress, who have attacked government and Ethiopian positions with clockwork regularity.

On Saturday, residents said a battalion of Ethiopian troops had entered Somalia through the border post of Beledweyne to reinforce their colleagues in the deadly urban warfare that has seen the use of heavy weapons.

The fighting, which has defied international calls for a truce, shattered a feeble six-day ceasefire with the powerful Hawiye clan which has controlled Mogadishu since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

Humanitarian groups have angrily condemned the latest flare-up, saying it has left civilians destitute.

The downing of an Ethiopian helicopter on Friday and the dragging of dead soldiers through the streets of Mogadishu this past week was a dark reminder of a failed UN-backed US peace operation in Somalia in the early 1990s.
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