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Truce aims to stem Somalia's bloodshed
Recent fighting between Ethopian troops and insurgents was intense even by Mogadishu's skewed standards.
By Rob Crilly | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the April 2, 2007 edition
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NAIROBI, KENYA - The war-weary people of Somalia have survived 16 years of anarchy and bloodshed, but even they haven't seen fighting this intense since the overthrow of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.
Mortars have crashed into targets across the capital, Mogadishu, for the past four days. The city's hospitals are overflowing, and more than 50,000 people have fled, according to aid agencies.
On Sunday, the Ugandan Army said one of its soldiers had been killed – the first African Union peacekeeper to die – during clashes in Mogadishu.
But civilians have been the main victims since a shaky six-day cease-fire broke down on Thursday when Ethiopian and Somali government troops, backed by tanks and helicopters, launched a major offensive to clear Mogadishu of insurgents linked to the country's ousted Union of Islamic Courts (UIC).
The offensive has focused on areas of Mogadishu controlled by a clan that is a major supporter of more radical elements of the UIC, which ruled the capital for six months before being driven out in December. That clan is the Habr Gedir, a branch of the larger Hawiye clan, and on Sunday clan leaders announced a truce with Ethiopian military officials.
Skepticism of peace deal
Despite the announcement, however, gunfire rang out across the city Sunday, and one analyst, speaking on condition of anonymity because he works as an adviser to the Transitional Federal Government, said the truce is unlikely to hold.
"Basically this raises all the same problems we have seen with previous peace deals," he says. "The Hawiye elders really have very little leverage or control over the young and the radicals."
Abdullahi Ali Hassan, director of the Center for Development and Education, a Somali non-governmental organization, says the fighting is intense even by Mogadishu's skewed standards.
"It's the heaviest fighting since the overthrow of Siad Barre in 1991. There are wounded people everywhere and many deaths," he said by telephone from his office in Mogadishu.
He added that markets had closed, making it impossible for residents to get food or water, and that thousands of people had been made homeless by the shelling.
Mr. Hassan says he has 10 families now living in his home after they were bombed out of theirs.
On Friday, insurgents downed an Ethiopian helicopter gunship – a vivid reminder of when militias shot down two American Black Hawks in 1993.
And over the weekend, doctors in the city's hospitals said they were no longer able to cope with the numbers of wounded.
"We are operating with only half our surgeons here, and the doctors who are here have now been working without relief for the last three days," Sheikhdon Salad Elmi, director of the city's main Madina Hospital, told Reuters.
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