MOGADISHU (Reuters) –
Militias allied to the Somali
government recaptured a southern port from Islamists on
Tuesday, as the death toll from an upsurge of fighting in
recent days rose to nearly 100, witnesses said.
The militias recaptured Guda, which had been taken by the
Islamists’ militant al Shabaab wing on Monday, after overnight
fighting that brought fatalities on both sides.
“The town is under our control. On both sides, five died
and eight were wounded,” said militiaman Abdisalan Hassan
Bootan.
In Mogadishu, eight more corpses were found where Ethiopian
troops backing the Somali government clashed with Islamist
insurgents over the weekend.
And in Baidoa town, the seat of Somalia’s parliament,
masked gunmen shot dead a government intelligence officer.
That took the total death toll in violence since the
weekend to 99, according to witnesses and a local rights group.
Branded terrorists by Washington, al Shabaab has led an
Iraq-style insurgency against the government and its Ethiopian
allies since early 2007.
The insurgency began when the Islamic Courts Union, of
which Al Shabaab was a part, lost control of Mogadishu.
ANOTHER TOWN TAKEN
Heavily-armed Shabaab fighters took Berdale town, near
Baidoa in central Somalia, on Monday, and immediately imposed
sharia law, residents said. The Islamists forced local
authorities to disarm, and there were no casualties.
“They are patrolling in the town carrying heavy machineguns
and rockets on their shoulders,” local businessman Ali Madey
Isak told Reuters. “They have told people not to smoke in
public, chew (the narcotic leaf) khat, or watch movies.”
The Islamists have in recent months launched an increasing
number of hit-and-run raids on small towns — seizing control
only to melt away before reinforcements arrive. The attacks
seem to be a show of strength intended to stretch the
government and Ethiopian troops, rather than a bid to win and
hold territory.
The recent violence has swelled Somalia’s internal refugee
population of about 1 million. Aid workers say Somalia is one
of the world’s worst, yet most neglected, humanitarian crises.
The United Nations is trying to broker peace talks between
the warring Somali factions in neighboring Djibouti on May 10.
The Horn of Africa nation has been without central rule and in
near-permanent conflict since the 1991 ouster of a dictator.
But the new violence has left talks looking unlikely.
A spokesman for the Islamic Courts, Sheikh Ibrahim Suley,
said the real death toll from the weekend violence in Mogadishu
was much higher, and talks with the government had consequently
been postponed indefinitely.
“The Ethiopians killed around 200 people and kidnapped 160
others including 41 Koranic students … We will continue
fighting the Ethiopians and those under the protection of their
tanks. We call on them to repent,” Suley told Reuters.
“It is never possible to hold talks with those who killed
our people. We had dialogue with the U.N. over the withdrawal
of Ethiopian troops and now we decided to put that on hold.”
The new fighting comes as the worst drought in more than a
decade grips most of Somalia, the U.N. office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Tuesday.
“If the drought persists in addition to the fighting, we
will be confronted with the same situation in 1991-92 when
drought and civil strife claimed the lives of hundreds of
thousands of Somalis,” Elisabeth Byrs of OCHA said in Geneva.
(Additional reporting by Abdi Mohamed in Mogadishu, Sahra
Abdi in Kismayu, Mohamed Ahmed in Baidoa, and Stephanie Nebehay
in Geneva; Writing by Guled Mohamed; Editing by Andrew
Cawthorne and Catherine Evans)
(For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on
the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/)
Death toll rises to 85
MOGADISHU, Apr 21 (AP) — Hundreds of residents fled Somalia’s capital on foot, by car and on donkey carts Monday and others removed corpses from the streets after a bloody weekend that killed some 80 people.
(On Monday the death toll rose to 85, according to Reuters).
On Sunday, a local human rights group said street fighting between Ethiopian troops and Islamic fighters trying to bring down Somalia’s shaky government killed 81 people over two days.
“We have left our homes for the first time in days to find the dead bodies of our neighbors and bury them,” said Aden Haji Yusuf, 60, one of Somalia’s highly revered clan elders.
Gunshots — a frighteningly common sound in this bloodstained capital — echoed in the distance as Yusuf and other elders recovered bodies. An Associated Press reporter saw at least 10 bodies being collected Monday around a mosque.
Meanwhile, hundreds used the relative lull in violence to escape Mogadishu, abandoning their homes and possessions.
“Ethiopian tanks are still stationed inside our neighborhoods and the insurgents are likely to launch counterattacks, so we are leaving for our own safety,” said Faduma Ahmed, who was fleeing with her six children and her brother.
“The casualties … were caused by Ethiopians using heavy artillery and tank shells in residential areas of the war-torn capital. We condemn this latest fighting,” said Sudan Ali Ahmed, chairman of Elman Human Rights. Besides the 81 dead, 119 people have been wounded, he said.
The Somali rights group tracks casualties through hospitals and morgues and puts out regular reports on the toll from Somalia’s fighting. The group said all 81 dead were civilians, but their figures could not be independently verified by the AP. Ethiopian officials could not be reached for comment on the group’s claim that it was shelling from their forces that caused the casualties.
Sunday’s clashes broke out in rubble-strewn streets still littered with the uncollected bodies of the dead from the previous day’s violence. Witness Aden Shire said the Ethiopians seemed to be searching for the bodies of fellow soldiers killed the previous day.
Witnesses reported seeing bodies in civilian clothing from Sunday’s fighting, but because insurgents also dress in civilian clothing, it was impossible to say how many of the dead were noncombatants.
Omar Abdulahi said that among the dead he counted were two old men shot by Ethiopian soldiers inside their homes. Nasteho Moalim said her 7-year-old daughter and three neighbors were killed by tank shells fired by Ethiopian forces that hit their homes. Her husband was wounded.
On the government’s side, at least one Somali soldier and two Ethiopians were killed, said Asha Shegow Abikar, who saw their bodies outside his house.
Prime minister Nur Hassan Husein addressed the growing toll of civilian casualties during the latest outbreak of fighting.
“The government is sorry about the fighting and loss of innocent civilian lives,” he told a news conference Sunday. “Our aim is to restore law and order through reconciliation and peaceful means, but that does not mean our troops and those of our ally Ethiopia will not defend themselves as they come under constant attack.” Ethiopian troops supporting the transitional government’s soldiers come under daily attack from the Islamic fighters they chased from power in the capital in December 2006.
The Islamists receive support from Ethiopia’s archenemy, Eritrea.
Impoverished Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew a dictator then turned on one another.
MOGADISHU – Two days of fighting between government and Ethiopian troops and Islamic militants in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, left 81 civilians dead and more than 100 wounded, a local human rights group reported Sunday.
Sudan Ali Ahmed, the head of the Mogadishu-based Elman Human Rights Group, accused the rebels of using civilians has human shields, while the transitional government’s Ethiopian allies shelled residential neighborhoods with tanks and artillery.
“We are condemning the warring sides in the strongest terms for violating human rights and committing war crimes against civilians,” Ahmed said.
Large numbers of civilians have been fleeing two neighborhoods in the northeastern part of the capital where the fighting has been taking place, witnesses reported, joining a population of displaced Somalis that aid groups estimate already tops 1 million.
A witness told CNN that Ethiopian troops seized a mosque in one of the neighborhoods where the worst fighting was taking place. The Ethiopians left the bodies of six elderly men outside the mosque around noon Sunday and were separating men and boys from the neighborhoods and arresting them, the witness said.
“The Ethiopians are firing heavy weaponry into areas where civilians are heavily populated, while the Islamic militants are firing mortars and RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] from within those areas,” Ahmed said. “So the exchange is causing a civilian casualty toll which is unspeakable.”
Others, like Mohamed Ismaail Ali, a father of eight in the capital’s Suqa Holaha neighborhood, reported being trapped by the fighting. Ali said he could see three bodies through his window.
“This morning, we have had a plan to flee from our house after yesterday’s clashes,” he told CNN. “But it became totally impossible to go outside the house, because artillery is falling everywhere, let alone the straying bullets which are flying any minute.”
Residents at Darimoole, a village on the road linking northeastern Mogadish to the neighboring town of Bal’ad, told CNN that a new exodus of people has begun.
“The people are fleeing in a large number as earlier 2007, when first rounds of fighting between the Ethiopians and the Islamic militants happened in the capital,” said Omar Hagi Ali, an elder at Dirimole.
Somali Prime Minister Nur Hassan Nur Ade had no immediate comment on the latest fighting, the latest in a lengthy insurgency against his government and its Ethiopian backers.
Ethiopia invaded Somalia in December 2006 to install the U.N.-backed transitional government in Mogadishu after a decade and a half of near-anarchy. Ethiopian troops quickly routed the provisional government set up by the Islamic Courts Union, which had wrested control of the capital from Somali warlords six months earlier.
The Islamists responded by launching a guerrilla war that destroyed Ethiopia’s plans for a quick withdrawal. A year after the invasion, Ethiopia’s government appealed for international contributions to a peacekeeping mission that was supposed to replace its forces, but the African Union-led mission has drawn few takers.
The invasion had the blessing of the United States, which accused the ICU of harboring suspected al Qaeda operatives — including men believed to have planned the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The ICU denied the allegation, but the insurgency its fighters launched against Ethiopian troops won the praise of al Qaeda’s fugitive leaders.(CNN)
