Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Djinnit came to meet Somali leaders and assess progress in the AU mission, after a night of fierce artillery duels killed at least three near the port where Ugandan AU troops and hardware were finishing their deployment.
"We have reinforced the security of the presidency and that goes well with our mandate of protecting the transitional federal institutions," Captain Paddy Ankunda, the spokesperson for the Ugandan troops, told AFP.
Military hardware and the final deployment of Uganda's AU troops docked on Monday at Mogadishu port, also the scene of heavy shelling and weapons-fire.
Ankunda said Uganda had finished deploying its 1 500 troops, a vanguard of a total of around 8 000 AU forces planned for the mission.
The insurgents have vowed to attack the peacekeepers and have already targeted the Ugandans since their arrival on March 6. Two peacekeepers have been injured and flown back to Kampala.
"We will not move an inch and our operations will go as scheduled," Ankunda told AFP.
About 40 000 civilians fled violence in Mogadishu in February alone, according to a UN report, and witnesses said hundreds more were fleeing on Tuesday, a day after artillery duels between government troops and insurgents killed three people, including two children, and wounding 12 others.
Dozens of people have died since January when joint Somali-Ethiopian forces ousted an Islamist movement from south and central Somalia, including the capital, but Islamist insurgents and allied factions have responded with deadly guerrilla warfare.
Source: AFP, Mar 20, 2007