Somalia: Scores dead as Ethiopian troops push further into Mogadishu
The casualties...were caused by Ethiopians using heavy artillery and tank shells in residential areas of the war-torn capital. We condemn this latest fighting, said Sudan Ali Ahmed, chairman of a local NGO, Elman Human Rights.
What we have seen on Saturday and Sunday [April 19-20] was the worst fighting ever, said Asha Shaur, a civil society spokeswoman. It was the most intense and destructive the city has experienced.
Shaur appealed to both sides of the conflict to spare the civilian population. The indiscriminate use of heavy weapons in populated areas has one aim onlyto kill as many people as possible, whether armed or unarmed, she said. Many of the newly displaced were more often than not people who had returned from camps ahead of the expected rainy season, explained Shaur. They wanted to shelter in their homes before the rains.
The violence has swelled an already huge internal refugee problem, with the United Nations World Food Programme already feeding about 1.5 million people, and the International Committee of the Red Cross and the aid group CARE feeding many others.
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