Fresh factional fighting rocked the lawless Somali capital on Wednesday as a tentative truce failed to hold and Islamic militia and gunmen loyal to a United States-backed warlord alliance battled for a fourth day.
Heavy machine gun, artillery and rocket fire resounded through streets of bullet-scarred Mogadishu after the collapse of the truce called by Islamic courts, bringing the death toll from the clashes that began on Sunday to at least 52, witnesses said.
Despite appeals from elders and the United Nations for peace and a short let-up in violence in the northern Sisi neighbourhood, where the fighting began, the two sides furiously attacked each other in Mogadishu’s central and northern Huriwa and Waharaade districts, they said.
”Rival gunmen are currently fighting vigorously in Huriwa and Waharaade,” said Osman Mahdi, a taxi driver, adding that hundreds of families were fleeing the two districts as civilians were bearing the brunt of the damage.
”I have seen the deaths of five people and was told by neighbours that seven more were killed,” said trader Mohamed Abdi. ”People were hit by stray bullets when the violence first started but now most people have taken shelter.”
The death toll of 12 in Huriwa and Waharaade was confirmed by numerous other residents, who said the city appeared to be close to being engulfed by an all-out war.
”They are firing mortar shells, rocket-propelled grenades, modified anti-aircraft guns and large-calibre machine guns at each other,” said Ismail Haji Omar, a Huriwa resident.
At least 40 people had earlier been confirmed killed and nearly 200 wounded in Sisi and the southern K4 neighbourhood since the fighting started over an apparent assassination attempt on an alliance commander.
Sisi had been the epicentre of the clashes for three days until the Islamic courts, which control the militia, declared a unilateral truce late on Tuesday after appeals from elders.
Court chairperson Sheikh Sharif Ahmed said the ceasefire was a humanitarian gesture, but the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT) scoffed and claimed the militia had run out of ammunition.
The UN urged the factions to stop fighting, calling for an end to the indiscriminate death and destruction.
”I appeal to leaders on both sides to step back from the brink and reconsider the damage they are inflicting on the population,” UN special representative Francois Fall said in a statement released in Nairobi.
The violence threatens to eclipse two eruptions in February and March when at least 85 people were killed when the two sides fought the bloodiest clashes in the capital since Somalia collapsed into anarchy 15 years ago.
Tension in Mogadishu has skyrocketed since, with the Islamic courts declaring a holy war against the ARPCT, which was created in February with US support.
The alliance has vowed to curb the growing influence of the Islamic courts that have gained backing by restoring a semblance of stability to areas in Mogadishu that they control by enforcing Sharia law.
It also accuses the courts of harbouring terrorists and training foreign fighters on Somali soil, charges that Islamic leaders deny but which have been echoed by the US and other Western nations.
Washington has declined to explicitly confirm its support for the alliance, although US officials have told Agence France-Presse that the group is one of several it is working with to contain the threat of radical Islam in Somalia.
Last week, the State Department acknowledged that the US was working with ”responsible individuals” in Somalia to prevent ”terror taking root in the Horn of Africa”. — AFP
