Ethiopia forces on Friday tightened the noose around the calm Somali capital, Mogadishu, a day after taking control of insurgent strongholds after some of the heaviest fighting in the city’s history, residents said.
With neither shelling nor gunfire for the first time in nine days, the forces patrolled northern and southern Mogadishu as residents solemnly collected rotting bodies that were abandoned in the streets.
Troops on foot and aboard trucks patrolled mortar-blasted neighbourhoods, where they moved from house to house to crack down on suspected insurgents who melted away into civilian area, an Agence France-Presse (AFP) correspondent reported.
”They are moving from house to house arresting people,” said Ibrahim Sheikh Mao, a resident of northern Mogadishu’s Suuqahoola area that was a theatre of the clashes.
”I imagine they have arrested hundreds of people because they started the operation early in the morning,” he added.
”All men are fleeing from the houses because the Ethiopian forces are arresting them,” said Shamso Nur, a woman who lives in the al-Kamin area.
”I have seen three men near my house being taken by Ethiopian forces. I do not know if they were fighters, but they looked like civilians,” she added.
An AFP reporter saw at least 20 men having been bundled into a military truck.
In northern Mogadishu, residents ventured into the streets and inside the labyrinthine back street of former rebel fortifications, collecting bodies and preparing them for burial, AFP witnessed.
”We have collected seven bodies, including one of a woman around those areas,” said Haji Mukhta Hassan, an elder.
”They were rotten and we have taken them to a mosque to prepare them for burial,” he added.
Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi on Thursday declared a military triumph over the insurgents, after ferocious clashes killed at nearly 400 people and displaced up to 400 000 others.
Previous battles three weeks ago in the city claimed at least 1 000 lives, mainly civilians. — AFP
