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30 killed in Mogadishu clashes

06 October 2010 02:34 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. At least 30 people have been killed and 50 others wounded in clashes between al-Shabab fighters and African Union (AU) troops in the Somali capital Mogadishu, APA reports quoting Press TV.
Sixteen people were killed after several mortar shells landed in and around the Bakara market -- the biggest and busiest market in Mogadishu on Monday. About 50 civilians sustained injuries, the Press TV correspondent in Mogadishu reported.

Somali ambulance workers said they ferried the wounded to Mogadishu’s Medina Hospital.

In addition, three AU soldiers and six Somali government troops were killed in a battle with al-Shabab fighters in Mogadishu’s northern district of Hodon.

Also on Monday, a pregnant woman was killed along with her two young children when a mortar shell landed on her house in the Waberi district of Mogadishu.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

Over the past two decades, up to one million people have lost their lives in the fighting between rival factions and due to famine and disease.

There are more than 1.4 million internally displaced people (IDPs) in Somalia. More than 300,000 IDPs are sheltering in Mogadishu alone.

Most of the displaced live in poor and degrading conditions on makeshift sites in southern and central Somalia, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.