Somalis hold protests as fighting resumes in Mogadishu
Hundreds of protesters, many of them women and children, took to the streets of Somalia's capital on Sunday in a protest against Ethiopian troops who are fighting Islamic militants with renewed force.
As clashes continued for a second day, protesters gathered in Mogadishu. Some erected barricades of burning tires, threw rocks and shouted anti-Ethiopian slogans. Two demonstrators were wounded when Ethiopian troops fired toward protesters, witnesses said.
Other civilians have been fleeing the capital or staying indoors to avoid exchanges of gunfire and artillery that have flared after months of relative calm.
The latest fighting has left at least 15 people dead, including as many
Somalis set tires on fire during an anti-Ethiopian protest in Mogadishu on Sunday.
(Farah Abdi Warsameh/Associated Press)
as seven Ethiopian soldiers, according to local media reports. Dozens of civilians have been reported wounded by stray bullets and shrapnel.
The Islamic Court Union seized control of Mogadishu in July 2006 and controlled much of southern Somalia for months, until troops sent by the UN-sanctioned transitional government and its Ethiopian allies chased them out in December.
Remnants of the Islamic group have vowed to fight an Iraq-style insurgency and thousands of civilians have been killed in the fighting in 2007.
Some 1.5 million Somalis are now in need of food aid and protection, 50 per cent more than at the start of the year, because of inadequate rains, continuing internal displacement and a potential cholera epidemic, the United Nations says.
Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, when rival warlords overthrew longtime dictator Maj.-Gen. Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on each other.
SOURCE: AP, October 28, 2007
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