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| Africa Horn |
| Fifteen civilians killed, 50 wounded in Somalia |
| 2008-09-20 |
| Fifteen Somali civilians at least were killed Friday when insurgents fired mortar shells on Mogadishu airport, drawing retaliatory fire from African peacekeepers, witnesses told reporters. The incident broke out minutes after a plane delivering goods for the African Union (AU) force stationed at the airport landed, in defiance of a three-day-old insurgent "ban" on using the facility. Insurgents fired several mortar shells at the airport but many missed their target, local residents said, adding that the AU forces fired shells back. An official at the city's main Madena Hospital said about 50 wounded civilians had been admitted. Two of them, including a two-year-old child, later died of their injuries. Somalia's Al-Shebab movement earlier this week warned that all flights should cease as of September 16, arguing that the airport was an instrument of Ethiopia's military occupation of Somalia. Commercial activity at the airport has since stopped. The airport is used for both commercial and military flights but is also the main base for the Ugandan contingent of the African Union peacekeepers, who were reinforced by Burundians earlier this year. With the war-torn Somalia's roads dotted with rogue checkpoints and freelance gunmen and its waters infested with pirates, traders have warned the airport's closure would only further stifle an already agonizing nation. Earlier on Friday, the government's director of civil aviation said it had cancelled the licenses of all airlines that heeded the "unimportant and baseless" threats from the Islamists and had stopped flying into Mogadishu airport. |
| Posted by:Fred |