SOMALIA: Overnight gun battles kill seven in Mogadishu

Record ID: 375017

  • Title: SOMALIA: Overnight gun battles kill seven in Mogadishu
  • Date: 17th October 2007
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Somali) BUSINESSMAN, SALAD MOHAMED, SAYING: "Now everyone can see how much loss our businesses have suffered during the fighting and there is nothing that we can do about it."
  • Embargoed: 1st November 2007 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Somalia
  • Country: Somalia
  • Topics: War / Fighting
  • Reuters ID: LVA505RKT0MTR7GYVXKDZRTLG906
  • Story Text: Heavy clashes overnight leave seven people dead in Mogadishu. Somali intelligence officers storm a U.N. compound in Mogadishu taking the World Food Programme's local chief of operations away at gunpoint.
    Violence in Somalia has forced many aid agencies to quit the Horn of Africa country, leaving U.N. agencies and a few others to run limited operations staffed by locals.
    In the latest killings in Mogadishu, where Islamist insurgents are fighting joint Ethiopian-Somali forces, five people were killed in a protracted gunbattle with rebels at a police station late on Tuesday(October 16).
    According to residents, mortars were fired first before gunbattles started.
    "Last night around 7 - 8pm a big mortar hit our house and immediately we had a blackout and when we come out, we saw lot of people lying down some of them had died on the spot," said Duniyo Hassan, a resident.
    Two others, including a district official, died of injuries sustained when roadside bomb was detonated in the coastal city early on Wednesday.
    Many Somalis condemn the government -- the nation's 14th attempt at central rule since 1991 -- for failing to end insecurity, improve health and education, and bring peace.
    "Now everyone can see how much loss our businesses have suffered during the fighting and there is nothing that we can do about it." said Salad Mohamed a local businessman after the overnight attacks.
    On Wednesday (October 17) morning, up to 60 Somali intelligence officers stormed a U.N. compound in Mogadishu and grabbed the World Food Programme's local chief of operations at gunpoint.
    Riding in two technicals -- Somalia's version of tanks -- armed security officers forced their way into the U.N. offices before taking the Somali head of WFP operations in Mogadishu to intelligence headquarters where he was being held.
    WFP said it was unclear why Idris Osman had been taken away, and called for his immediate release.
    WFP said it was forced to suspend food distribution, which started on Monday (October 15), to more than 75,000 people in the capital -- WFP's first distribution of food there since late June.
    A police spokesman confirmed Osman's detention, but declined to say why he had been taken.
    Rampant piracy, closed borders and the authorities' previous failure to clear food shipments for distribution have hobbled efforts to provide aid to thousands of people who have fled the escalating conflict.
    In April, the interim government promised it would clear obstacles to delivering aid after the U.N.'s humanitarian chief complained about red tape and restrictions.
    Those include numerous checkpoints where aid workers complained of theft or obstruction, a longstanding practice of Somali gunmen in the 16 years of anarchy since warlords toppled dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
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