The overall toll on the sixth consecutive day of clashes has now surpassed 250, according to Sudan Ali Ahmed, chairperson of the Elman Peace and Human Rights Organisation, which has been counting the number of dead.

After a night of sporadic fire, heavy explosions hit Mogadishu’s northern districts, where Ethiopian forces aboard tanks pursued insurgents, residents said.

Dozens of mutilated bodies lay rotting in the streets under blistering sun as shooting barred residents from collecting them for burial, witnesses said.

“We have been asking both sides to stop fighting but our calls have landed on deaf ears. But we renew our appeal for the sake of innocent civilians,” Ahmed said.

Residents said the clashes raged unabated.

“We have seen Ethiopian tanks taking positions and heavily shelling insurgent positions,” said Mukhtar Mohamed, a resident of Fagah in northern Mogadishu.

“The fighting is heavier than yesterday, the rivals are exchanging machine gun, mortar and anti-aircraft fire.”

Fighters firing recklessly

Ethiopian tanks and the insurgents’ modified pick-up trucks raced, with fighters on board firing recklessly.

“The fighting is very heavy and the casualties are steadily increasing everyday. The Ethiopian forces are hitting civilians indiscriminately,” Hussein Said Korgab, the spokesperson for Mogadishu’s dominant Hawiye clan, told AFP.

The latest clashes first erupted last Tuesday, and after a day’s lull resumed full-scale on Thursday.

So far at least 256 people — including 28 insurgents — have been killed and hundreds more wounded.

The latest flare-up has displaced tens of thousands and destroyed millions of dollars worth of property, Korgab said.

“At least 70 000 have evacuated their homes. Property worth $500-million has been destroyed. The Ethiopian and government forces will take ultimate responsibility for all this mess,” he added.

Hundreds of civilians, clutching their personal belongings, fled their homes in southern Mogadishu, part of an ever-increasing exodus from a city wracked by the worst bloodletting since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

‘The fighting is getting worse’

“We have to flee because there is no hope of staying in this town. We are afraid that the fighting is getting worse everyday,” said Hassan Mohamed, a resident of Waberi area in southern Mogadishu.

“We have no place to stay in this town. Everywhere in Mogadishu is the same: death. We are running away until we reach a safer place,” said Saadia Bur Dheere, a mother of three, while boarding a packed pick-up truck.

The UN refugee agency said last week that more than 321 000 people had fled the seaside capital since 1 February, but elders told AFP that figure could now be closer to 400 000 with the exodus of thousands more over the past six days.

Most of them are camped under trees on Mogadishu’s outskirts without supplies or protection from reported disease outbreaks.

Ethiopian troops helped Somalia’s UN-backed government to oust Islamists from the country’s south and central regions in January.

Insurgents have waged a guerilla war

But since then fighting has steadily grown worse as insurgents and clan warlords have waged a guerrilla war, vowing to drive out foreign forces from the Horn of Africa nation.

Somalia’s Ethiopian-backed Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi vowed to crack down on insurgents, some of whom are allegedly linked to al-Qaeda.

“The government and Ethiopian forces have had an upper hand in the fighting in Mogadishu,” he told a press conference here.

“There are very small positions left under (the control of) insurgents and our forces will eliminate those who are carrying out terrorism.”

Somalia has lacked an effective government since Barre’s ouster sparked a deadly power struggle that has defied more than 14 attempts to stabilise the country.