Mogadishu calm after days of deadly clashes

 
Friday, March 23, 2007

MOGADISHU (AFP) - The Somali capital was calm Saturday with daily life slowly resuming to normal, after three days of deadly clashes between Ethiopia-backed government troops and Islamist insurgents.

 

Public transport resumed and grocery shops reopened, albeit sluggishly, in Mogadishu, a day after a Belarussian cargo plane also crashed near the city killing all 11 people on board.

 

However, Mogadishu, home to one million people, remained virtually a ghost town after the fierce fighting which claimed 24 lives, and AFP correspondents saw soldiers patrolling the sweltering seaside capital.

 

At the K4 junction, a notoriously volatile but strategic area of southern Mogadishu, African Union (AU) peacekeepers, deployed to help government troops regain control, had take up positions, some on top of buildings.

 

Somalia, a nation of about 10 million, has been wracked by factional bloodletting since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre cleared the way for a deadly power struggle that has scuppered more than 14 peacemaking attempts.

 

At least 24 people died this week and hundreds more were wounded in three days of clashes, despite a brief truce Friday. On Wednesday, angry residents dragged and burned soldiers in the Mogadishu streets, a grisly reminder of the fate that befell US special forces in the 1990s.

 

The government has vowed to keep on fighting until the insurgents are defeated, who, in turn, have said they will pursue their attacks.

 

Dozens of people have died since January when Ethiopian-Somali troops ousted an Islamist movement from south and central Somalia, prompting deadly guerrilla warfare.

 

On Friday, a Belarussian Ilyushin cargo plane chartered by the African Union to bring engineers and equipment to Mogadishu to repair another aircraft crashed north of the capital, killing 11 people.

 

"They are from Belarus," said Muhamoud Hussein Gudabaye, a local government official.

 

Although widely believed to have been brought down by a rocket, Somali Interior Minister Muhamoud Hamed Gulled said the government was "still treating the matter as an accident, until a further indication is made by an expert."

 

Two weeks ago, an Ilyushin-76, also chartered by the AU, caught fire on landing but caused no casualties.

 

The government said it was a mechanical fault but Somali Islamist fighters claimed responsibility.

 

Source: AFP, Mar 24, 2007