|
Death toll hits 54 from clashes in Somali capital
 [Al Arabiya Latest] The death toll from two days of fighting in Somalia's capital between government forces and al-Shabaab rebels has risen to 54, ambulance services said on Thursday as clashes subsided with both sides claiming successes.The government urged residents to vacate the areas where fighting had taken place as it planned to take on the rebels again, but said it had not yet started a long-awaited offensive to dislodge the insurgents from Mogadishu once and for all. "The government was just counter-attacking the rebels. We are going to fight the rebels as planned, let civilians around those areas vacate," Abdul Rasaq Mohammed Nur, Mogadishu's mayor, told reporters. Insurgents have fought the government since the start of 2007 and the Western-backed administration has been hemmed into a few blocks of the capital since a rebel offensive last May. "We have carried 54 dead people and 140 others injured yesterday and today," Ali Muse, coordinator of ambulance services, told Reuters. Earlier in the day the Elman human rights group had put the death toll at 38 and 104 wounded. "The death toll may rise because the shelling was terrible. Hundreds of families have been displaced from at least four districts of Mogadishu," Ali Yasin Gedi, vice chairman of the group, told Reuters. Posted by: Fred 2010-03-12 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=292414 |