Ten civilians have been killed and 19 others wounded in renewed clashes between Islamist insurgents and Ethiopian troops backing Somali government forces in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, health officials and witnesses said Monday, according to Xinhua
Four people died after shells landed in the main Bakara market in Mogadishu after government forces in the Presidential Palace compound fired artillery shells in response to an attack by insurgent fighters, witnesses in the market said.
In the northeast of the Somali capital, insurgents fired rocket propelled grenades and heavy machine gunfire at bases of Ethiopian troops who returned heavy artillery fire that landed in neighborhoods around the battle arrears.
"I saw three dead people after a shell fired by the Ethiopian troops hit the street near our neighborhood," Abdelweli Osman, an eyewitness in Yaqshid district said. "Five other people, including women and children, were also wounded."
In Huruwaa district in the northeast Mogadishu, three more people died after stray bullets hit them near their homes while seven others were severely wounded.
Health officials in Mogadishu's main Medina hospital, say that seven people were admitted with wounds of varying degrees of severity, adding that they expected more to be admitted as people had difficulties in getting through to the health posts because of continuing shillings.
The escalation in violence in Mogadishu comes as the Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed submitted his resignation to the parliament after a bitter power struggle with Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein.
New Acting President, who is also current Speaker of Parliament, Sheik Aden Madoobe, called on people to stay calm, saying the state institutions would function as usual and that "a new leadership will be formed soon for the country".