At least eight people were killed and several others wounded on Saturday in mortar and grenade attacks in an escalation of guerrilla-style attacks in the Somali capital, witnesses said.
Assailants fired several mortar shells at a crowded market in the south of the city, killing three people and wounding several others, forcing many to flee the volatile area.
”We heard heavy explosions and immediately there was dust darkened everywhere. I saw three dead people at the scene and there were others wounded … there was confusion and nobody knows what the hell happened,” said Haji Nure Dini, a trader.
Two children were also killed when shells landed in a camp for displaced persons and in a position near a former military camp in the capital’s southern district, local resident Nur Hassan Waberi said.
Other casualties occurred when a barrage of mortar and grenades was fired into positions near the United Nations Development Programme offices and the international airport, as well as into the Gupta neighbourhood.
”Two people, one of them a young girl, were killed and five others wounded after a shell landed in their living room. The two were from the same family and they died at the spot,” said resident Shamso Bare Mohamed.
Also, a young girl hawking wares was killed after gunmen fired grenades into a hotel, in the north of the city, where dozens of people had gathered for a government-backed peace and reconciliation seminar.
”A young girl who was hawking [wares] near the hotel was killed … I have also seen three people injured, one of them a policeman,” Muhidin Mohamed, a resident, said.
Vitale Abdikarim, a participant in the government-backed forum, said several people fled after the attack, the second on the same hotel in a week.
Rise in violence
Since the joint Ethiopia-Somali force seized control of the country in December, Mogadishu has seen a rise in violence, blamed on a defeated Islamist movement that has vowed a prolonged insurgency.
Such attacks, targeted mainly against positions believed to be held by the government and its allies, have claimed dozens of lives and spread panic across the city, further complicating the government’s stabilisation plan.
The escalation comes as the international community scrambles to deploy 8 000 troops to help embattled President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, whose government is in the outpost of Baidoa, stamp his authority across the country.
So far, the African Union has been able to secure pledges for about 4 000 troops from Uganda and Nigeria, with Malawi, which earlier had said it would contribute, saying a final decision is yet to be made.
No date has been set for the deployment, and analysts have warned that lack of political commitment and funds might scupper yet another attempt to end anarchy in Somalia.
The defeated Islamists have vowed to attack and kill peacekeepers, a spectre that dampens hopes of such a deployment, which has been delayed since 2005 for fear of further confrontation and insufficient funds.
A previous 1993-1995 peace mission ended disastrously after United Nations and United States troops fled the country, paving the way for the rise of clan warlords.
In addition, the violence pours cold water on Yusuf’s pledge to convene a national reconciliation conference to heal rifts in the country torn apart by systemic bloodletting.
Somalia, home to 10-million people, has lacked an effective central authority since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre plunged the country into chaos. — Sapa-AFP