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Ethiopian troops shelled suspected Islamist hideouts Friday in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, where some of the worst clashes in months have left at least 43 dead in two days, many of them civilians.The escalating violence came as the Ethiopian army attempted to flush out pockets of insurgents in southern districts of the Somali capital, from which thousands of residents have fled in recent days.Heavy fighting that erupted on Thursday went on into Friday when Ethiopian tanks fired shells on suspected hideouts in the notoriously dangerous Bakara market neighbourhood, killing six civilians."A tank shell landed into a crowd in Bakara area and killed six people, including a woman and her son. Some of the bodies could not be identified because they were ripped to shreds," said Hanad Guled, an eyewitness.An AFP correspondent saw shells being fired from the neighbouring Blacksea district, where witnesses said several Ethiopian tanks were posted.An Ethiopian shell killed four other civilians in Howaldag district, according to resident Mariam Hassan.Clashes had broken out Thursday in several southern neighbourhoods, claiming the lives of at least another 25 people, witnesses told AFP.The toll for the latest fighting could not immediately be confirmed by hospital sources, but civilians again bore the brunt of the violence."Nine people were discovered in Suqaholaha area. They were killed in yesterday's fighting. All of them are civilians, including women and three children," Abdullahi Garweyne, an elder in Suqaholaha.Other witnesses said five bodies were discovered Friday in two separate houses, while those of four women were also found in the Hamar Jadid district.Eight other bodies were recovered in the same district after Ethiopian forces carried out an operation on Friday, said Amina Hussein, whose brother was among the slain.The clashes had abated by midday, but the situation remained extremely tense.The flare-up in violence came amid intensive consultations to find a new Somali premier and vows by the Islamist opposition to crush Ethiopian troops.Speaking to AFP from his base in Eritrea's capital Asmara on Thursday, the leader of an exiled Islamist-dominated opposition alliance, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, urged all Somalis to take up arms against Ethiopia."It is our belief that every individual in Somalia has to participate in the resistance and the defeat of the Ethiopian occupation," he said.Sheikh Sharif was a top leader of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which briefly controlled large parts of Somalia before being ousted by government forces and Ethiopian troops earlier this year.The armed branch of the ICU-accused by Washington of links to Al-Qaeda-and their tribal allies have since waged a guerrilla-style war in Mogadishu.On Thursday, residents dragged the body of an Ethiopian soldier through the streets, trampling the corpse and spitting on it, an AFP correspondent witnessed.An attempt by Ethiopian troops to recover the body saw another three soldiers killed in a heavy exchange of fire.A week earlier, insurgents had paraded the bodies of three Ethiopian troops in southern Mogadishu, in a scene reminiscent of 1993, when the bodies of US special forces taking part in a doomed operation were torn to pieces and displayed in the streets.An African Union peacekeeping contingent of some 1,600 Ugandan troops deployed earlier this year has been unable to curb the violence.In his quarterly report on Somalia, released Thursday, UN chief Ban Ki-moon argued that deploying UN troops was not a "realistic and viable option" and instead suggested sending a "coalition of the willing".The escalating fighting in Mogadishu has forced tens of thousands of residents to flee, in an influx of displaced people that neighbouring towns have struggled to cope with.Relief efforts cannot always reach those who stay behind, and aid agencies have sounded alarm bells over what they describe as a major humanitarian crisis."People are terrified but most have little choice except to wait and hope that the violence does not come to them," said Colin McIlreavy, Somalia head of mission for Doctors Without Borders (MSF)."In Mogadishu now there is no safe place to go," he said. MSF is one of the only international organisations providing health services in Mogadishu.
As in the days of Noah....
