[Marxism] Death toll mount as US proxy war against Somaiian insurgents heats up

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Reuters - Apr 21, 2007
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL2170474620070421?feedType=RSS 

 

Hundreds dead as Mogadishu war escalates

 By Sahal Abdulle 

 

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Shells pounded Mogadishu on Saturday, killing at least
73 people to swell a death-toll already in the hundreds from this week's
battles pitting militias and Islamists against Somali and Ethiopian troops. 

 

The escalating war has also sent more than 321,000 residents fleeing in the
biggest refugee movement in Somalia since the 1991 fall of a dictator
ushered in 16 years of anarchy. 

 

Even by Somali standards, Saturday's carnage was shocking. 

 

"I counted 20 dead in the street and the sidewalk. Some were missing heads,
others were so mutilated you couldn't tell if they were men or women,"
resident Suleman Mohammed said from the Al Barakah market area where more
than seven mortars landed. 

 

Residents and medical staff interviewed by Reuters confirmed a minimum of 73
casualties from the incessant shelling and gunfire across the city on
Saturday, adding to an estimated 131 others from the previous three days'
violence. 

 

The week's final death-toll is expected to soar and may come close to the
estimated 1,000 casualties from a similar four-day flare-up at the end of
March. Most of the victims are civilians. 

 

The Islamists ruled most of south Somalia for the second half of 2006,
before being defeated in a brief war over the New Year. But their fighters
-- backed by some disgruntled Hawiye clan elements -- have regrouped to rise
up against President Abdullahi Yusuf's administration and his Ethiopian
backers. 

 

"There are a lot of deaths. I am carrying the bodies of two family members
into my car now," one distraught resident, who asked not to give his name,
told Reuters. 

 

Another, Abdi Mohammed, said: "Six shells hit our neighborhood. One hit our
neighbor's house killing five of the six family members who live there. My
7-year-old son and his friend were wounded." 

 

REFUGEE CATASTROPHE 

 

The United Nations and aid agencies say the massive refugee exodus is
creating a looming humanitarian catastrophe, with diseases already
spreading. Many refugees are living under trees and beside roads, short of
food, water and any basic amenities. 

 

Inside the city, residents described a terrifying night of near-constant
shelling mixed with thunder from a storm. This correspondent could barely
tell the difference as windows shook. 

 

Mortars, apparently from Ethiopian positions, hit the offices of the private
broadcaster HornAfrik on Saturday morning, wounding several journalists
inside, witnesses said. 

 

"We are in a state of shock, I see no end to this," said Ali Haji, 50, a
resident who took his family out of Mogadishu last month but came back to
protect his house and belongings. 

 

"I've had enough. I'm abandoning the house. I am caught between two groups
-- Ethiopians trying to kill me because I am Somali, and insurgents not
happy because I am not picking up a gun and fighting with them. I have lost
all hope." 

 

With even a cemetery under bombardment on Saturday, residents buried their
dead in makeshift graves. 

 

The only operating hospital, Madina, was packed with wounded, screams
echoing through the corridors. Tents were set up in the hospital garden to
deal with the influx, with many people nursing injuries unattended under
trees in the heat. 

 

"Unless we get massive international help, we cannot cope," a doctor said.
"Our beds and tents are full." 

 

Access to the hospital involved a dangerous journey through streets
ricocheting to gunfire and explosions, witnesses said. 

 

Insurgents barricaded themselves behind makeshift sandbanks and raced
through streets on the backs of pickups turned into battle-wagons, while
Ethiopian and Somali troops made forays into rebel strongholds with armored
cars. 

 

A small African Union peacekeeping force of 1,500 Ugandan soldiers has
failed to stem the conflict. 

 

The United States, Ethiopia and Somali government say the rebels are linked
to al Qaeda, but Islamist leaders deny that, saying they are being deprived
of a say in Somalia's future. 

 

With the world startlingly quiet on the Somali crisis, beyond general
appeals for calm, the Arab League followed the United Nations on Saturday to
appeal for an end to violence. 

 

"The League calls on all sides in Somalia to stop shooting, and to spare the
Somali people, especially civilians, from the perils of the current war,"
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa told reporters in Cairo. 

 

(Additional reporting by Andrew Cawthorne in Nairobi, Cynthia Johnston in
Cairo) C Reuters 2006.

 

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