Writethru: Forty Die in Mogadishu Shelling

Writethru: Forty die in Mogadishu shelling

MOGADISHU, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) — Nearly forty people have been killed and sixty others wounded including eleven children after heavy exchange of shelling between insurgent fighters and Somali government forces and foreign troops backing it, the latest of the escalating violence in Mogadishu, witnesses and hospital sources said.

The shelling begun after insurgents fired mortars at the Mogadishu airport where a plane reportedly landed. African peacekeepers at the airport and Ethiopian and Somali government forces fired backed.

Yusuf Omar, an eyewitness in Hawlwadag district, said that he saw five civilian killed by an artillery shell that hit the pavement near their home.

Local media report said that nearly dozens of shells hit a number of residential areas in south of the Somali capital Mogadishu where thirty-five people were killed by the shells in separate areas in the capital.

Doctors at Media hospital said that nearly sixty people including small children were wounded and doctors expect the injured to increase as people are being brought to the hospital.

“The people have sustained serious shrapnel injuries and some of them require operations,” Dr Dahir Mohamoud, deputy director of Media Hospital told Xinhua, “the wounded are being brought to the hospital and the problem we have is that we do not have blood bank where we can keep donated blood”.

Insurgent fighters have vowed to target planes landing at the airport where they say is being used by what they called “enemy forces”. The Somali government and other foreign forces said that they will protect the airport where they said is safe for planes to land.

Civilians bear the brunt of the violence going on in Somalia particularly, the Somali capital Mogadishu.

Thousands have been killed or wounded in the 20 months of violence which broke out after Ethiopian troops backing Somali government forces toppled an Islamist administration that ruled in much of the south and the central Somalia.

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