Missiles, gunshots and mortar shelling rocked the Somali capital Mogadishu Saturday, as some of the worst violence in 15 years continued to claim the lives of civilians and send scores fleeing. Up to 60 people were killed in the heavy fighting and at least 200 people wounded, according to Somali news agency Shabelle. Bodies were strewn in the streets and the Medina hospital was overwhelmed with patients as the clashes raged on, according to dpa. The fighting between Ethiopian-backed government troops and insurgents began overnight Friday and witnesses in the Black Sea and Bakara neighbourhoods said at least 100 missiles landed in the two residential areas, with insurgents fighting back with mortar fire. Meanwhile, local radio station HornAfrik in Mogadishu was hit by a shell and instantly went off air. Local media reported that two employees were injured. Some 20 people were killed on Thursday and at least 100 wounded, a day before Somali interim President Abdullahi Yusuf downplayed the violence, saying it was "slowly but surely" ending. A four-day flare-up in early April saw up to 1,000 people killed in what has been called the worst fighting in 15 years. The restive seaside capital has seen almost daily fighting since the Ethiopian troops marched into the city over the New Year at the request of the Somali transitional government. In continuing fighting with insurgents - made up of members of the city's dominant Hawiye clan and remnants of an Islamist group that ruled most of the country for the last half of 2006 - hundreds of people, mostly civilians, have been killed. An African Union peacekeeping force of 1,500 has been unable to stem the bloodshed. The United Nations refugee agency has said more than 321,000 people, or nearly a third of the city's population, have fled the bullet-scarred Mogadishu since February. The world body's humanitarian office has meanwhile warned of a looming humanitarian crisis, as epidemics take hold and the violence hampers relief efforts. Warlords ousted dictator Mohammed Siad Barre in 1991 and then turned on each other, sweeping the Horn of Africa country into years of anarchy. -- SPA
