At least 13 Somalis died on Thursday, including 11 in almost simultaneous mortar blasts, as Mogadishu’s civilian population continued to bear the brunt of relentless fighting.
”A mortar shell exploded in the midst of a crowded stall, killing six people and wounding five others, some of them seriously,” witness Hassan Abdalla Nur said.
Moments later, another shell landed nearby, killing another three people.
”The shell landed in the middle of a crowd and killed three civilians on the spot and seven others seriously wounded,” said Beq Omar, a local pharmacist.
Haji Ibrahim, another witness, gave the same death toll and said the victims were torn to shreds by the explosion.
”These incidents were horrific, I have never seen anything like it. The explosion cut people into pieces and splashed blood on the market stalls. We’re not sure where the mortar came from,” he said.
An Agence France-Presse correspondent saw a microbus whisking the injured away to hospital. Witnesses said the death toll could yet rise as many of the wounded appeared to be in critical condition.
Doctors at the capital’s Medina Hospital said at least 40 people were accepted at the facility with injuries.
”Two more people died from their injuries,” said Hassan Osman Burane, a doctor at Medina. The latest deaths brought to 11 the total number of people who died in the twin attacks.
In Bakara market, traders and bereaved families felt helpless. ”My brother did nothing wrong to deserve to die in a mortar attack. He has left a young wife with two children,” said Hindi Osman as she sobbed uncontrollably.
”This market will be abandoned all together if such unprovoked attacks on civilians continue,” said Abdullahi Jama, a trader.
The market attack came barely hours after Islamist insurgents clashed with Ethiopian-backed government forces.
The fighting took place mainly in southern neighbourhoods but mortar-shell impacts were reported in some distant northern districts of the war-ravaged capital.
At least two civilians were killed in Yaqshid and Gupta neighbourhood in overnight violence, the latest in a series of attacks that has driven hundreds of thousands from the seaside capital since January, several witnesses said.
Islamist militants have waged an insurgency in Mogadishu since they were defeated by Ethiopian and Somali forces early this year, ending their brief rule in the country’s southern and central regions.
Bakara market, once the heart of the battered seaside capital, is one of several Mogadishu districts that have been almost completely deserted and sees daily fighting.
The deadly insurgency has forced an estimated 600 000 people to leave Mogadishu in recent weeks, prompting warnings of an unprecedented humanitarian disaster in the country, according to the United Nations.
Aid groups have said that insecurity is choking their efforts to deliver humanitarian supplies to those affected.
Civil fighting has defied numerous bids to restore stability in the Horn of Africa nation since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. — Sapa-AFP