Ethiopian Review

Fierce fighting between rival Islamist groups killed at least 11 people on Friday including an 8-year-old girl in a botched land mine attack, witnesses said.

The child was killed in an explosion in the Somali capital Mogadishu that had apparently intended to target African Union peacekeepers, her uncle Ahmed Dahir Ugaas said.

Clashes on Friday in the central Somalia village of Wabho, about 480 kilometers (300 miles) northeast of Mogadishu, pitted hardline Islamist fighters against moderates backing President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, said shop owner Abdullahi Salad Roble.

Roble said he saw the dead bodies of three civilians and seven combatants after the hardline militiamen overran the village and captured four pickup trucks fitted with heavy machine-guns abandoned by the moderate Ahlu Sunna Waljama militiamen.

The two sides have fought for supremacy over central Somalia since late 2008 as the Islamist insurgency aimed at toppling the weak, Western-backed government splintered.

Hardline Islamist insurgents last month launched a major offensive against the Western-backed government’s positions in Mogadishu and heavy street battles killed close to 200 civilians.

The president vowed Thursday to fight the militants to the last man because of the hardliners refusal to discuss peace.

Ahmed’s government, which aims to rule Somalia with a moderate version of Islam, controls only a few blocks of Mogadishu and a border town. His allies control pockets of southern and central Somalia.

One of the main groups fighting Ahmed’s government, al-Shabab, controls large parts of southern Somalia. The U.S. State Department considers al-Shabab a terrorist organization with links to al-Qaida. The group has denied this.

Somalia has been mired in anarchy and chaos since 1991 when warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

Meanwhile, the UN refugee agency said on Friday about 96,000 Somalis have been displaced by the latest fighting in the bullet-riddled Mogadishu which began last month in the Horn of Africa nation.

In a statement issued in Nairobi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said the displacement was growing rapidly as the fighting rages in the restive capital.

“The number of Somalis forced from their homes in Mogadishu has now topped 96,000 since the start of fighting between government forces and armed opposition groups on May 8,” the UNHCR said in the statement.

“Out of this latest total of displaced, an estimated 35,000 are still in the city, looking for shelter in more secure areas because they have no means to leave,” it said.

Intense fighting between the government and the opposition Al-Shabaab and Hezbul Islam (Islamic Party) groups erupted in several north-west areas of Mogadishu on May 8.

UNHCR said some 26,000 have managed to flee to makeshift sites in the so-called Afgooye corridor about 30 km south-east of Mogadishu, joining 400,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) already sheltering there.

The remaining 35,000 have fled to other parts of Somalia. Some of them are also making their way towards neighboring countries, said the UN agency. (Agencies)

- EthiopianReporter