MOGADISHU, 21 April 2007 — Ethiopian forces battled insurgents with mortar bombs and machine guns in the Somali capital yesterday as the United Nations warned of a humanitarian catastrophe with corpses left rotting in the streets. Ethiopian forces launched mortar bombs from the presidential palace in southern Mogadishu at insurgents based in the north of the city, who fired back, witnessed said.
“Ethiopian forces are bombing down civilian sites, places where there are no insurgents. This morning, they have shelled places some 15 kilometers away (from the city), and people are fleeing again,” said Hussein Said Korgab, the spokesman for Mogadishu’s dominant Hawiye clan.
At least 37 civilians have been killed and 200 wounded in three days of fighting that erupted Tuesday, with a lull the following day, but which was shattered Thursday. “I can tell you that more than 30 people have been killed in two days of fighting. The number of wounded people is about 200,” Korgab told AFP. Seven civilians were killed Tuesday. More Ethiopian troops moved into Mogadishu to reinforce their troops a day after a suspected suicide bomber attacked their base south of the capital.
The worsening situation in Mogadishu has led UN humanitarian officials to warn of a looming disaster. “Unless something is done, the humanitarian crisis is going to turn into a catastrophe very soon,” Eric Laroche, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Somalia, told journalists Thursday.
The UN said Somali government forces were blocking relief supplies and that UN aircraft were being shot at. In Mogadishu, bodies were left lying in the streets, while a cholera or diarrhea epidemic was taking hold and new flooding was likely soon, it added. “I live with my children under a tree now and there are a lot of people living like this,” Muna Ali Nur, a mother-of-four, told AFP from a camp in Elesha.
Tensions in Somalia have risen again since Ethiopian forces helped the UN-backed transitional government to oust Islamists from Mogadishu in January. The Islamists have vowed to wage a prolonged guerrilla war against the Ethiopians and the capital is in the grips of fierce fighting, touching off an exodus of civilians.
Some 213,000 people have fled Mogadishu in the past two months, the UN refugee agency said yesterday. Four days of fighting late last month saw the worst violence in Mogadishu for 15 years and efforts to agree a lasting cease-fire have been dogged by clashes.
Elders from Mogadishu’s Hawiye clan have accused the Ethiopians of refusing to withdraw from the frontline, attacking the insurgents and shattering a fragile cease-fire. But an official close to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s office told AFP the two sides were “still in secret, intermittent talks.”
Elders have said at least 1,000 people have died and more than 4,000 have been wounded in the fighting. Somalia has lacked an effective government since the ousting of Siad Barre in 1991 touched off a power struggle that exploded into inter-clan warfare.
Meanwhile, the African Union envoy to Somalia, Mohamed Foum, held talks with Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi in Mogadishu on the deployment of more AU peacekeepers in the lawless country.
Some 1,500 AU peacekeepers from Uganda deployed in the lawless capital early March have failed to stem the surge in violence. They have instead taken positions in the main airport, seaport, presidential palace and a key access road to the airport.
The Ugandans are an advance contingent of about 8,000 peacekeepers the pan-African body plans to deploy in Somalia to help President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed maintain control of the country. The UN’s humanitarian office said it would meet with Somali government leaders on Monday about the deteriorating situation.
