MOGADISHU (AFP) — Nine Somali civilians were killed Friday when insurgents fire mortar shells on Mogadishu airport, drawing retaliatory fire from African peacekeepers, witnesses told AFP.
The incident broke out minutes after a plane delivering goods for the African Union (AU) force stationed at the airport landed, in defiance of a three-day-old insurgent "ban" on using the facility.
Insurgents fired several mortar shells at the airport but many missed their target, local residents said, adding that the AU forces fired shells back.
"Two houses close to southern Mogadishu's K5 intersection were destroyed by mortar shells and seven dead civilians were found in the debris," said Ahmed Omar, a resident.
Another witness gave the same death toll.
"Five civilians were killed in a house near the Libyan embassy and two others died in a neighbouring house," said Bashir Abdullahi, adding that seven other civilians were wounded in this incidents.
Several other witnesses said two civilians were also killed when mortar shells smashed into homes in the southern Holwadag area.
"The insurgents did what they have been doing. They fired mortars shortly after a plane carrying our supplies landed, but there were no casualties," Baridgye Bahuko, spokesman for the AU mission in Somalia, said.
"I don't think that the AU forces randomly fire at civilians in residential areas, though we have the right to defend ourselves from those who attack us," he added.
Somalia's Al-Shebab movement earlier this week warned that all flights should cease as of September 16, arguing that the airport was an instrument of Ethiopia's military occupation of Somalia.
Commercial activity at the airport has since stopped, despite government assurances that the radical Islamist militia did not have the means to impose a blockade on the airport.
The airport is used for both commercial and military flights but is also the main base for the Ugandan contingent of the African Union peacekeepers, who were reinforced by Burundians earlier this year.
With the war-torn Somalia's roads dotted with rogue checkpoints and freelance gunmen and its waters infested with pirates, traders have warned the airport's closure would only further stifle an already agonising nation.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
