MOGADISHU, Somalia (CNN) — Heavy shelling struck Somalia’s capital city on Thursday, leaving pools of blood around a neighborhood mosque, a devastated market and 11 civilians dead, according to witnesses and a local journalist.
Many of the dead were preparing for prayers at the Abu Hureyra mosque, which was packed with worshippers, according to Sheikh Abdullahi Omar, whose leg was wounded by shrapnel.
“Body parts of the worshippers are scattered all over,” he said.
Local photojournalist Hassan Ahmed Haji rushed to the the mosque after the apparent mortar shell blast and saw six bodies. He said it was a frightening scene.
Mogadishu’smain market also came under attack, as vendors fled for their lives amid a continuous barrage of shelling that left five dead, witnesses told Haji.
“Bakaraha market has turned into a human butcher house today,” said Hawa Hamud Abdi, a meat trader who survived the attack. She said a mother and child were among those killed. She spoke as mortar shells and artillery fire rained down on the market.
Clashes between Islamic insurgents and Somali and Ethiopian Woyanne soldiers also raged around Suuqa Holaha, a neighborhood in northeast Mogadishu. Fighting also continued in Folarensa junction, an intersection near the presidential palace.
Wounded civilians are pouring into Mogadishu’s Madina Hospital, which is already struggling to cope with other war-wounded patients, a nurse said.
The latest fighting comes after a major United Nations-brokered peace deal was signed in the neighboring country of Djibouti by Somalia’s transitional government and an alliance of armed opposition forces.
The agreement calls on the Alliance to disassociate itself from any armed groups still fighting the government and for all sides to allow “unhindered humanitarian access and assistance” to all Somalis. A joint committee led by U.N. officials will monitor the agreement’s implementation.
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… more from BBC
Bakara market in Mogadishu bombed
(BBC) — At least 50 people have reportedly been killed in clashes in the Somali capital Mogadishu and the port of Kismayo.
Some 30 people have been killed in two days of fierce fighting between Islamists and a clan militia in Kismayo, a BBC reporter says.
Some mortars landed near the compound of President Abdullahi Yusuf, who is currently out of the country.
Another landed near a mosque in the busy Bakara market, killing at least six people, a witness told the BBC.
At least 3,000 people are reported to have fled the fighting around Kismayo.
Witnesses say that after the mortars landed in Bakara and near the president’s compound, government troops and their Ethiopian Woyanne allies opened fire, killing several civilians.
One witness told the BBC that the mortar landed outside the mosque as people were preparing for prayers.
He said that the wounded could not be evacuated for some time because of the horrific scenes.
The UN’s World Food Programme is expanding its programme to feed 2.4 million people in Somalia by the end of the year.