Hundreds of Somalis packed mattresses and food into minivans and trucks, preparing to flee their capital a day after it suffered some of the fiercest battles in 14 days.
Though Friday was relatively calm, more fighting was expected.
Fighters loyal to an Islamic militia and their secular rivals manoeuvred heavily armed trucks around city streets and reinforced their positions.
Doctors reached by telephone in the city’s hospitals and clinics raised the death toll from Thursday’s fighting to 60, and more than 150 people were wounded across Mogadishu, said Dr Abdi Ibrahim Jiya, of the Somali Doctors’ Association.
In Geneva, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Somali Red Crescent Society called for the warring parties to show restraint and safeguard the lives and dignity of the wounded, prisoners and civilians.
The two organisations said in a statement on Friday that there have been more than 300 deaths in Mogadishu since fighting first erupted on February 18, and 1 500 wounded have been treated in hospitals.
Militiamen from the Islamic Courts Union, which wants Somalia to be ruled by Qur’anic law, made a rare foray on Thursday into southern and eastern parts of the capital and captured a strategic road junction in the centre of the city, known as K4. They also seized the historic Sahafi hotel, which is owned by a member of the secular alliance known as the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism.
The ideological fault lines are reminiscent of Taliban Afghanistan. The alliance charges that the self-appointed Islamic court leaders have links to al-Qaeda, while the Islamic militants accuse the alliance of working for the CIA.
United States officials have repeatedly refused to confirm or deny any association with the alliance.
The Islamic fundamentalists portray themselves as an alternative force capable of bringing order to the country, which has been embroiled in clan fighting and without a real government since warlords overthrew long-time dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.
The two sides engaged in fierce fighting earlier this month, with more than 140 people killed in eight days. But those clashes were confined to northern Mogadishu.
On May 14, they signed a ceasefire, but renewed fighting began in northern Mogadishu on Wednesday, when at least six people were killed.
It spread on Thursday, and thousands of civilians fled their homes on foot, some with children on their backs, trying to keep from being caught in the crossfire or struck by stray rockets, shells and bullets. Among those fleeing were residents who had left their homes in northern Mogadishu earlier to seek refuge in other parts of the city.
Overnight, the Islamic militia consolidated their gains from Thursday’s fighting and built up defensive positions in anticipation of a counterattack by the alliance, an Associated Press reporter observed. Scattered gunfire mixed with the explosion of mortar rounds throughout the night, but Mogadishu was relatively quiet on Friday morning.
A United Nations-backed government based in the central city of Baidoa, 250km north-west of Mogadishu, has not been able to assert authority elsewhere in the country, in part because of infighting. The Islamic leaders reject the government because it is not based on Islam. — Sapa-AP