Mogadishu clashes claims 113 amid looming humanitarian disaster

0 Comments | AFP, April, 2007

MOGADISHU (AFP) — Fighting between Ethiopian forces and Islamist insurgents in the Somali capital killed at least 113 civilians and left 229 wounded in three days, a local human rights group said Friday.

The United Nations warned of a humanitarian catastrophe with corpses left rotting in the streets, where rival fighters continued pounding each other with heavy artillery.

Sudan Ali Ahmed, chairman of the Elman Peace and Human Rights Organisation, told AFP his group arrived at the toll by collating figures from hospitals, other humanitarian groups and counting bodies abandoned in the streets.

Ethiopian troops helped the UN-backed transitional government to oust Islamists from Mogadishu in January. But since then fighting has steadily grown worse as Islamist...