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| Africa Horn |
| At least 26 killed in central Somalia fighting |
| 2008-07-02 |
| At least 26 people, mainly combatants, were killed on Tuesday in fighting between Ethiopian forces and Islamist insurgents in central Somalia, residents said. The incident was one of the most serious in months and came a week before a deadline for the implementation of a truce agreement signed by rival factions last month in Djibouti was due to expire. The insurgents ambushed an Ethiopian army convoy travelling from Guguriel near the Ethiopian border to Mataban town, about 450 kilometres (280 miles) north of the capital Mogadishu, they said. 'I counted 18 bodies in and around Mataban town,' said Hussein Moaliam Aden, an elder in Mataban, adding that he had seen the bodies of at least seven Ethiopian soldiers lying near the ambush site. Mataban residents said a child was killed as the clashes spread into the town in Galgudud region, confirming that 26 people had been killed. 'One child was killed in the crossfire in Mataban,' said one resident, Mohamed Hadi Ali. Residents reported that the fighting, in which both sides used armoured vehicles, was the heaviest in the region since Ethiopian forces entered Somalia in late 2006 to bolster the country's weak government. 'Most of the dead are from the rival sides. We have never seen such a heavy fighting since the Ethiopian forces entered our country,' local resident Feisal Mohamed said. Sheikh Abdirahim Isse, a spokesman for the insurgents, confirmed the clashes and claimed the Ethiopians had suffered heavy losses. 'There was heavy fighting today and the Ethiopian forces suffered huge losses. Many of them were killed and their armed vehicles destroyed,' Isse told AFP by phone from an unknown location. The Ethiopian army, which rarely comments about such incidents, has pledged to pull out once the United Nations deploys a peacekeeping force to bolster an embattled African Union peacekeeping force confined to Mogadishu. According to several international rights groups and aid agencies, the fighting has left at least 6,000 civilians dead and displaced hundreds of thousands in the last 12 months alone. On June 9, the Somali government and its political opposition signed agreements, including a ceasefire scheduled to enter into force within 30 days, but a radical wing of the Islamist fighters called Shebab has refused to recognise it. Instead, it has vowed to keeping fighting until Ethiopian forces pull out of Somalia, a nation that has been plagued by an uninterrupted civil war since the 1991 overthrow of president Mohamed Siad Barre. The African Union has deployed some 2,600 peacekeepers in Mogadishu but the contingent on the ground still falls far short of the 8,000 troops pledged by the continental body and has failed to stem the violence. At least 2.6 million Somalis are facing hunger due to acute food shortages spurred by a prolonged drought, insecurity and high inflation. UN famine monitors have warned that the figure could hit 3.5 million by year's end. |
| Posted by:Fred |