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.
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