At least 23 people were killed in the Somali capital Mogadishu when insurgents attacked camps housing African Union (AU) and Ethiopian troops on Thursday, triggering clashes, witnesses and police said.
The Islamist insurgents shelled bases housing AU peacekeepers and Ethiopian troops in southern Mogadishu’s K4, Shirkole and Hamarjadid quarters, drawing retaliatory fire. Somali forces joined the battle to support the peacekeepers, they said.
Witnesses said several residents were also wounded in outlying districts in some of the heaviest fighting in Mogadishu, the epicenter of heavy clashes for nearly two decades.
PHOTO: AFP
“I saw four civilians, one of them a woman, and an insurgent fighter killed in Taleh area. The civilians were caught in the crossfire,” witness Hasan Yahye said.
Colonel Farah Abdullahi, a Somali policeman, said two officers were killed in the clash between AU troops and insurgents.
Sixteen other civilians died in fighting between Ethiopian troops and insurgents, bringing the death toll to 23.
“Four civilians died and three others wounded when an artillery shell hit their house near a vegetable market in Bakara,” said Osmail Adan, a witness.
Another witness reported five fatalities in a Bakara teashop.
A family of three was killed when a mortar crashed into their house.
A man and woman were killed when a shell crashed into a telephone booth in Bakara.
“It was terrible, I saw my friend die as a result of serious injuries caused by a mortar shell that destroyed his telephone booth. A woman also died after shrapnel cut her to pieces,” witness Ali Osman said.
Witness Sirad Nur Roble said two other civilians were killed elsewhere in Bakara, one of the most volatile zones in the battle-wracked seaside capital.
Witnesses said the shells destroyed residential and business premises in Mogadishu, where hundreds of thousands of residents have fled the bloody duels for dominance in the recent months.
While visiting a northern Kenyan refugee camp for Somalis, French Secretary of State for Human Rights Rama Yade urged the warring parties to push ahead their reconciliation process.
A moderate wing of the Islamists is in talks with the government at UN-sponsored talks in Djibouti. A radical Islamist wing, accused of ties to al-Qaeda, has spurned dialogue.
“But there is still so much to do: to support the peace process by implementing a ceasefire, restore security with the Islamists, marginalizing radical Islamists and also to encourage Ethiopia to play a constructive role” she said.
“Because there is no peace without justice, we [France] are in favor of the creation of a commission to investigate war crimes committed in Somalia by all parties to put an end to the impunity that has reigned in the country since 1991,” she said.
The AU force in Somalia, AMISOM, has been in Mogadishu since March last year and currently numbers around 3,400 troops, from Uganda and Burundi.
The figure is far below the 8,000 peacekeepers the AU pledged to deploy in Somalia to bolster the country’s weak government and protect humanitarian operations.
Aid groups have scaled down operations in Somalia because of growing insecurity largely blamed on Islamist militants who have waged a guerrilla war since they were ousted last year by a joint Somali-Ethiopian offensive.
Somalia has been without an effective government since the 1991 ousting of president Mohamed Siad Barre touched off bloodletting that has defied numerous bids to restore stability.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS