Heavy fighting flared anew on Friday in the lawless Somali capital Mogadishu as Islamic militia and gunmen loyal to a United States-backed warlord alliance clashed for a sixth day with little respite.
At least 13 people — 11 civilians and two militiamen — were killed in the new violence, and four bodies were recovered from a house hit by mortar shells in Mogadishu’s northern Sisi neighbourhood, witnesses said.
Sisi resident Ali Yusuf Osman, who described a dead child as among the corpses recovered in an abandoned house, said 19 people had been wounded in the fighting.
Another two, wounded when a rocket hit their house overnight in the adjacent Huriwa district, died from their injuries, a relative said.
The new fatalities, which came as witnesses said the two factions battled in the streets and regrouped in other areas of the city, brought the death toll to at least 97 since the clashes erupted on Sunday.
Violence intensified in Sisi but partly subsided in Huriwa in the north, but militia and alliance fighters were gathering in preparation for new engagements in Waharaade district, witnesses said.
“Elders are making last efforts to end the hostilities but the two sides have yet to agree,” said mediator Sheikh Mohamud Ibrahim Jumale, adding that the warlords were demanding that Islamic fighters withdraw as a precondition. — AFP