Catastrophe looming in Somalia

April 20, 2007

Residents of Mogadishu described the fighting as bad as the four-day war which killed 1,000 people at the end of March. In the latest clashes between Islamist insurgents and Ethiopian-backed Somali forces, a suicide attack on an Ethiopian base in the city killed more than 20 people. Several rockets are reported to have hit a crowded market, killing and wounding an unknown number. The United Nations is warning of a humanitarian catastrophe in the Horn of Africa, where more than 200,000 have fled their homes in Mogadishu.