by Mustafa Haji Abdinur
Monday, April 30, 2007
MOGADISHU (AFP) - Thousands poured back into Mogadishu on Monday after a four-day calm, but an African Union commander warned that fighting could erupt again and a humanitarian crisis still looms.
Four days after Islamist insurgents and clan fighters melted away in the face of heavy fire by Somali-backed Ethiopian troops, AU troop commander Lieutenant Katumba Wamala cautioned that the battle was not yet won.
"It's not yet a time to celebrate," said the AU commander, in charge of 1,500 Ugandan troops, the first contingent of a peacekeeping force struggling to get off the ground.
Wamala warned that insurgent fighters now hiding in the city could still pose a threat.
"Once they come out (and) surrender, their lives will be protected. If that is not done, then we could have a situation where those small groups become a source of insecurity," he said.
Meanwhile, renegade Somali leaders in Eritrea said the insurgents had changed tactics but would strike back again.
"The resistance fighters are changing their strategy from face-to-face conflict to hit-and-run attacks," said top Islamist leader Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and former parliament speaker Sheikh Sharif Hassan Aden in a joint statement.
"The resistance will never give up its mission to fight the invading troops," they warned, also naming the AU peacekeepers as targets.
Ethiopian forces have been battling Islamist fighters and clan militia since the beginning of the year when they backed Somali government soldiers to oust an Islamist movement from the capital and south and central Somalia.
After an Ethiopian offensive on Thursday put an end to nine days of heavy clashes, in which hundreds died, up to 400,000 displaced civilians began returning home from squalid camps on the outskirts of the city.
"From my visit around the city, I have realised that there is a looming humanitarian catastrophe," Wamala told a press conference, adding that civilians were in dire need of water, food, medicine and shelter.
"Unfortunately the international community has deserted Somalia ... this is not a time to desert the Somali community."
An AFP correspondent saw thousands of people, aboard trucks and on foot, streaming back to the shattered capital.
"What took place in Mogadishu was catastrophe but I believe that if the war is over, we can reconstruct our houses and maintain life as before," said Asli Ali Gurey, a mother of six, as she returned.
Mohamed Juke Ali, resident of northern Mogadishu where some of the worst fighting took place, returned to the ruins of his former home.
"What we can see is total destruction. Hell happened in our neighbourhood," said the father of seven, reporting some looting had taken place.
The United Nations said up to 400,000 people have fled the capital since February and that more people have been internally displaced than in Iraq during the same period.
Source: AFP, April 30, 2007