Two Somali women were killed by crossfire in Mogadishu Friday, a day after intense shelling and gunbattles left 17 people dead in the country's restive capital, a witness said. Shelling in northern neighbourhoods continued early in the morning, only hours after the bodies of 17 civilians were hastily buried in improvised cemeteries on the edge of the war-battered city.
"Two women were selling mint and tried to cross a road" in the northern Arafat neighbourhood, said witness Muhubo Hersi. "They were caught in the crossfire and both died on the spot," she said.
"There was a lot of shelling in our neighbourhood and three artillery shells landed on a house very close to mine," Hersi went on. "Nobody was killed because nobody lived in this house, the people have fled."
At least three other civilians were wounded in the shelling however, according to a pharmacist living in the area. "A child and two women were brought to my shop this morning and I treated their wounds," said Mohamed Adan Bashir. Civilians have borne the brunt of the intense fighting that has plagued Mogadishu in recent months.
Although no accurate figures are available, thousands of people are believed to have died since June and more than half a million have fled the city to find shelter with family elsewhere in Somalia or in camps for the displaced.
Six of the city's 16 districts have been almost completely emptied but some civilians remained trapped in central Mogadishu, their movements impeded by hundreds of rogue checkpoints and with scarce access to food and sanitation.
With no political solution in sight, Ethiopian-backed government troops and Islamist insurgents continue to battle it out in the streets of the seaside capital.
Thursday was the bloodiest day in December, with mortar shells smashing into the southern Bakara market area and killing 12 civilians, according to witnesses and medical sources. "These incidents were horrific, I have never seen anything like it. The explosion cut people into pieces and splashed blood on the market stalls. We're not sure where the mortar came from," witness Haji Ibrahim had told AFP.
Five other people died in similar incidents and gunfights in other neighbourhoods on Thursday. Aid groups have warned that one of the world's worst food crises is unfolding in Mogadishu and its surroundings and complained of utter disregard for basic humanitarian principles on the part of all the belligerents.
Violence in the lawless country has defied numerous initiatives aimed at restoring peace and stability in the Horn of Africa nation since the 1991 ouster of former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
Uganda has deployed 1,600 African Union peacekeepers to Somalia, but the contingent remains far short of the 8,000 troops pledged by the continental body and has failed to stem the bloodshed. The AU's new special representative to Somalia, Nicolas Bwakira, nevertheless announced Friday that the first battalion of Burundian soldiers would arrive by year's end and more troops from Nigeria early next year. Bwakira, who met new Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein, told reporters at Mogadishu airport that he had urged the government to negotiate with the opposition.
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