Artillery rocks Mogadishu on third day of fighting

Shelling rocked Mogadishu for a third day yesterday, overwhelming hospitals with casualties as Ethiopian and Somali troops backed by helicopter gunships attacked Islamist rebels and clan militia.

Scores of civilians have been killed in what the International Committee of the Red Cross says is the capital's worst fighting for more than 15 years.

Ethiopia said its military had killed more than 200 "armed remnants" of a hardline Islamist movement ousted from Mogadishu in a war over the New Year. Terrified residents said volleys of artillery rounds began crashing down hours before dawn.

Hospitals struggled to cope with injured civilians, even though most victims could not reach any kind of help because of ongoing battles. Doctors were also trapped by the fighting. At the city's main Madina Hospital, many patients lay on thin mattresses in the yard. Others wailed inside packed wards. Thousands of people have fled the city in recent days, and a Reuters reporter said thousands more took to the streets on foot at first light yesterday.

As the battles intensified on Friday, insurgents shot down an Ethiopian helicopter gunship with a missile. Ugandan peacekeepers pulled two dead crewmembers from the wreckage.

Somalia's envoy to Ethiopia told reporters the attacks were only targeting insurgent strongholds where local elders had failed to convince rebels to disarm. Many analysts say Addis Ababa seems bent on obliterating the insurgents and their clan militia allies, who have been emboldened by recent strikes including the downing of a plane serving an African peacekeeping mission. But the experts say it could have the opposite effect of turning Mogadishu's people further against their Christian-led neighbour or drawing in foreign Muslim jihadists.

Despite the fighting, Somalia's interim government remains confident a reconciliation meeting of elders, politicians and former warlords planned for April 16 will go ahead in the city.

The African Union (AU) has sent 1,200 Ugandan troops to help the government, but they have been attacked. Other African nations are baulking at sending more soldiers to bring the AU force to its planned strength of 8,000.