By Salad Duhul
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Elman Human Rights Group said most of the deaths from March 9, 2006, to March 10, 2007, occurred in Mogadishu, one of the world's most violent and gun-infested cities. The group based its estimated figures on hospital reports and interviews with wounded victims in the country that has seen little more than anarchy for more than a decade.
Much of the death toll stems from months of battles that culminated in a radical Islamic militia wresting control of southern Somalia from an alliance of warlords in June.
The government, backed by Ethiopian troops, toppled the Islamic militia in late December, and is struggling to keep control of an already devastated country where one in five children dies before the age of 5 from a preventable disease.
Sudan Ali Ahmed, chairman of the human rights group, said the government must "protect human rights, especially for women, children and displaced people throughout the country, to rebuild all necessary judicial institutions and to convene a national reconciliation conference."
African Union peacekeepers began to arrive in Mogadishu on Tuesday, the first peacekeepers to come in more than a decade. Two peacekeepers have been wounded when insurgents attacked their convoy.
The peacekeepers are the vanguard of a larger force authorized by the United Nations to help the government assert its authority in the arid, impoverished nation on the Horn of Africa. Several other African countries also have promised troops, but no date has been set for their arrival.
Source: AP, Mar 10, 2007