Somalia Fighting Leaves 230 Civilians Dead in Capital

Bloomberg
By Sarah McGregor and Hamsa Omar
Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Bloomberg -- At least 230 civilians were killed and 400 wounded in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, over the past two weeks amid fighting between government forces and the rebel al-Shabaab militia, the United Nations refugee agency said.

As many as 23,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in Mogadishu, which has become a deserted battleground, with remaining residents staying inside their homes, the Geneva- based agency said in an e-mailed statement today.

Clashes between the groups, which have been fighting since 2007, intensified on Aug. 23, when al-Shabaab declared a new offensive to overthrow President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.

“In these dangerous and difficult conditions aid distributions are becoming rare and those who venture out are risking their lives,” according to the UNHCR statement.

Somalia hasn’t had a functioning central administration since the ouster of former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. Most of southern and central Somalia is under the control of rebel fighters, while the Western-backed government holds only portions of Mogadishu. The country has more than 2,000 foreign fighters, from India, Pakistan and elsewhere, who are providing funds and training for terrorist operations, according to the African Union.

Fighting in Streets

Today, at least six civilians died and 25 others were wounded in fighting that began when government forces attacked Islamist bases in northern Mogadishu late yesterday. Ambulances are struggling to transport casualties to the hospital because of fighting in the streets, Ali Muse Sheikh, a paramedic at Nationlink and African Life Ambulances, said in a phone interview today.

“All the streets have become battlefields,” he said.

Somalis uprooted by the latest round of violence are seeking asylum in Somalia’s semi-autonomous northern region of Puntland, as well as neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya, UNHCR said.

Somalia has the world’s third-highest number of refugees, after Afghanistan and Iraq, the agency said. There were more than 614,000 Somalia refugees and 1.4 million displaced within the Horn of Africa nation as of the end of August, it said.

--Editors: Paul Richardson, Heather Langan.

To contact the reporters on this story: Sarah McGregor in Nairobi at [email protected]; Hamsa Omar in Mogadishu via Johannesburg at [email protected].

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at [email protected].