Ambulances see busy first week in Somali capital

[Jacaylbaro]

MOGADISHU, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Ambulances and their life-saving service returned to Mogadishu this week for the first time in two years, but some residents saw them as a harbinger of more fighting in the Somali capital.

 

The British charity Lifeline Africa donated the five vehicles and is paying the salaries of 10 nurses and their drivers who started work in the chaotic city on Wednesday.

 

The impoverished Horn of Africa nation has been mired in civil conflict since warlords overthrew a dictator in 1991.

 

Fighting between Islamist rebels and Somalia's interim government has killed some 10,000 civilians since the start of last year and driven a million more from their homes.

 

"These ambulances will reduce the big number of injured people who die from loss of blood," Rufai Mohamed Salad, Lifeline Africa's coordinator in Mogadishu, told Reuters. "They have already taken 20 wounded people to various hospitals."

 

The charity also planned to provide fire engines, he said.

 

The ambulances arrived the same week Somalis saw the country's first university graduation ceremony for nearly two decades: 20 doctors and dozens of teachers beat huge odds to qualify from Mogadishu's Benadir University.

 

As with Thursday's graduation party, local mobile phone firms were quick to associate themselves with the rare good news. Telcom and Nationlink have set up free emergency numbers -- 112 and 777 -- for users to call for an ambulance.

 

Medical services are in high demand, with the Islamist insurgents camped on the outskirts of Mogadishu and battles breaking out regularly in parts of the centre.

 

At least 15 people were killed on Friday when Ethiopian forces backing the government shelled a guerrilla stronghold in the north of the city, witnesses said. Ethiopia has said it will withdraw all its troops from Somalia by the end of the year.

 

With some residents fearing an imminent assault on Mogadishu by the Islamists, the new ambulances speeding past with their red lights flashing merely heralded more hard times ahead.

 

"We're not happy to see ambulances after 18 years of bloody war. It shows us that Mogadishu will face the worst infighting," mother-of-six Halima Farah told Reuters.

 

"We even fear our youths will join the rival combatants because they now know they will get quick medical treatment."