Somali deaths mount, refugee exodus grows

By Sahal Abdulle

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Shelling and gunfire rocked Mogadishu on Friday as an exodus from the Somali capital gathered pace from three days of battles that a rights group said had killed at least 113 people.

The United Nations said 321,000 people -- nearly a third of the city's population -- had fled since February in refugee scenes not seen in Somalia since the fall of a dictator in 1991.

Since Wednesday, battles pitting Ethiopian and Somali troops against Islamist insurgents have killed 113 people and wounded another 222, the Elman Peace and Human Rights Organisation said.

"Today was one of the worst days of shelling yet ... We call on both sides to cease the war immediately without any pre-condition," chairman Sudan Ali Ahmed told Reuters.

Parts of Mogadishu looked like a ghost town of empty streets and shattered buildings. In provinces round the city, tens of thousands of refugees waited under trees or beside roads in what aid groups say is a looming humanitarian disaster.

At packed Mogadishu hospitals, bloodied patients screamed and doctors struggled to tend to scores of wounded after four days of clashes between troops and insurgents.

Soldiers blocked off roads to military bases after a suicide attacker blew himself up on Thursday at a former prison now used by the interim Somali government's Ethiopian military allies.

Several dozen people, mainly civilians, died in that blast and other fighting across the city on Thursday including a rocket attack on a market-place.