At least 50 Somalis killed in 24 hours

[rudy-Diiriye]

RIP--in heaven! tfg is just not getting it. its about time prices are put on these house niggas heads!

 

i am will to pay...$1000.00 if u bring me yeeys head!! lol. u can keep the eyes. i just wanna hang is his head on my front door.

 

Heavy fighting between insurgents and Ethiopian troops backing Somalia's shaky government has killed 50 people and wounded 100 others in the past 24 hours, witnesses and doctors said.

 

The latest clashes are among the heaviest fighting since April, when battles left at least 1,670 people dead in Mogadishu.

 

Ethiopia has been pushing more troops into the capital in recent days, causing an increase in contact between insurgents and government troops and their Ethiopian allies, residents said.

 

Ethiopian troops based at the former defence ministry in the south of the capital fired tank shells into the main Bakara market early on Friday, killing eight civilians, Khalif Haji Muse told AP, adding two others died when Ethiopian snipers fired at them. Other witnesses said six others died when shells crashed into their homes.

 

The bodies of 34 people, among them four women and six Ethiopians, were found in the northern and southern parts of Mogadishu, where fighting was intense a day earlier, witnesses said.

 

Mogadishu has seen little peace since December, when Ethiopian troops supporting Somalia's UN-backed government ousted an Islamic group called the Council of Islamic Courts.

 

This year alone, thousands of Somalis have been killed in fighting between Ethiopian troops and Islamic insurgents who vowed to launch an Iraq-style guerrilla war after they were chased from the capital and much of southern Somalia.

 

Presidential spokesman Hussein Mohamed Mohamud said insurgents would be treated harshly.

 

The insurgents' aim, Mohamud said, "is to depict the fighting as a war between Ethiopians and Somali people. Far from it."

 

"The fighting is between government troops and their Ethiopian friends on one hand, and the peace-haters on the other hand and anyone who hurts Ethiopian or Somali troops will be treated as a traitor," he said.

 

The fighting on Thursday afternoon began when Ethiopian troops tried to retrieve the body of one of their soldiers who had been killed in earlier skirmishes in the south of the city.

 

Hundreds of protesters - mainly women and children - chanting anti-Ethiopian slogans dragged the body, which had been left behind by fleeing soldiers, through the city for about 8 km, witnesses said.

 

Ethiopian troops based in the south fired several tank shells into the north of the city, hitting the livestock market, which is seen as a hotbed of supporters of Islamic insurgents, said local resident Abdiaziz Mohamed Guled.

 

The dragged soldier was one of two Ethiopian soldiers killed earlier on Thursday along with a Somali in a heavy fighting that started when hundreds of Ethiopian soldiers from two nearby military bases began patrols in the northeastern Hurwa neighbourhood.

 

Doctors at Medina, Keysaney and Daynile hospitals said they have treated 100 civilians with gunshot wounds since Thursday.

 

Sporadic gunfire could be heard in the north and south of the capital on Friday and Somali government troops were patrolling some of the streets, residents said. But no substantial fighting was reported on Friday morning.

 

On Wednesday, the humanitarian agency Doctors Without Borders said the fighting had grown so bad that civilians who were shot or hit by shrapnel during the night frequently bled to death because the violence cut them off from the hospitals.

 

The impoverished Horn of Africa nation has not had a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew a dictator and then turned on one another.

[Naxar Nugaaleed]

don't you know he'll give who ever you send 10000.00 for your head, campared to ur $1000.00. I would be careful if i was you about sending $1000.00 assassins.

[rudy-Diiriye]

damn! i am more expensive than uncle homie!!!!!

uncle a is cheap thug...u just dinged his price down.

 

how about $999! deal?