Reuters/Associated Press
Sunday, April 22, 2007
MOGADISHU, Somalia: Rotting corpses lay in the open and explosions shook Mogadishu on Sunday for a fifth day of fighting between insurgents and allied Somali-Ethiopian troops that have killed at least 230 people.
In a separate development that could increase tension in the Horn of Africa, Eritrea suspended its membership in a regional body that mediated the Somali conflict.
The unresolved border dispute between Eritrea and Ethiopia has drawn the two countries into war in the past; the Somalia conflict has also lately been seen as a proxy battle between them.
In an ever-growing exodus some say is nearing half a million people, hundreds more Somalis trudged out of Mogadishu on Sunday, dragging and carrying belongings.
"I have lost all hope," one woman said, walking at the head of 11 relatives, mainly children.
Terrified residents shuddered at the sound of mortars, mainly from the north where fighting has been worst.
"Seven of us were in a bus when a mortar hit," said a trader, Barlin Salad. "Four were in the back, one died instantly. I'm not sure yet, but I think my husband has lost an eye."
With an insurgency simmering since the ouster of militant Islamist rulers from Mogadishu at the start of the year, violence this past week has been one of the worst sustained flare-ups since then.
The local Elman Peace and Human Rights Organization said at least 41 civilians and 6 insurgents died Sunday, adding to 52 Saturday and 131 from Wednesday to Friday.
Residents fear that the real toll may be much higher, while the number of Ethiopian and Somali soldiers killed is unknown.
A previous four-day spike in fighting at the end of March killed at least 1,000 people, mainly civilians.
Around Mogadishu, rebels were barricaded behind makeshift sandbanks and raced through streets in pick-up trucks turned into battle-wagons. Ethiopian and Somali government troops fired heavy artillery and raided rebel strongholds in armored cars.
Bodies lay on the streets Sunday, some mutilated and decapitated by incessant shelling that has pulverized residential neighborhoods considered Islamist strongholds.
The main Madina hospital was so full that the wounded were forced into tents in the garden or just under trees.
With Somalis trying to bury their dead quickly in accord with Muslim custom, some were digging makeshift graves by the road.
Somali government forces captured Tawfiq Hotel, which was owned by a businessman sympathetic to the insurgents, said Salad Ali Jelle, deputy defense minister .
"People in Mogadishu should vacate their homes which are located near the strongholds of terrorists and we will crack down on insurgents and terrorists very soon," Jelle told The Associated Press.
The Islamists ruled most of south Somalia for the second half of 2006, before being defeated by the interim government and its Ethiopian military backers in a war at the start of the year.
But Islamist fighters, backed by some disgruntled Hawiye clan elements and foreign jihadists, have regrouped to rise up against President Abdullahi Yusuf's administration and his Ethiopian allies, whom they regard as hated foreign invaders.
The government, in turn, accuses them of Al Qaeda links.
"The terrorists want to make Somalia a base to attack East African and other international targets," Jelle said at a news conference called to display two truckloads of land mines collected in two parts of the city.
"The international community should help us eliminate them."
A 1,500-strong African Union force, working with the government, has so far failed to stem the violence.
Ethiopia accuses Eritrea of sending arms and men to support the Islamists, while Eritrea says Addis Ababa is occupying Somalia illegally at the behest of the United States.
Eritrea's exit from the seven-member Intergovernmental Authority on Development was a blow to diplomatic efforts to unite foreign opinion on pacifying Somalia.
At a recent meeting, the authority backed Ethiopia over Eritrea.
"The government of Eritrea was compelled to take the move due to the fact that a number of repeated and irresponsible resolutions that undermine regional peace and security have been adopted in the guise of IGAD," an Eritrean statement said, referring to the authority.
Source: Reuters/AP, April 22, 2007