Heavy fighting in Mogadishu is entering its third day; the violence has already killed 40 people in the Somali capital, and the Shabab militia is apparently trying to surround the Transitional Federal Government and the African Union peacekeepers who support it. Militants attacking from the north on Wednesday reached to within a mile (2 kilometers) of the presidential place in the heart of the capital, Mogadishu, before African Union peacekeepers in tanks reinforced government troops, residents said. Hard to tell, as ever, what's really happening in Mogadishu, but it sounds like both sides have basically fought to a stalemate. Shabab can't advance the final mile to the presidential palace -- the one area of Mogadishu that's legitimately under the TFG's control -- and the government, despite launching a barrage of artillery fire at Shabab's positions, can't force the rebels out of the capital.

“This is a peacekeeping mission in a place where there is no peace to keep,” said Major Ba-Hoku Barigye, spokesman for the operation in Somalia, as he squatted behind a wall of sandbags on a roof in central Mogadishu. Next month, the African Union mission (Amisom) will have spent three years in a city that has been a graveyard for peacekeepers from the United Nations and America.

Violent battle with heavy artillery in Mogadishu: the previous budget is of 5 or 6 dead and at least 14 wounded. Victims are almost all civilians and between them also a woman and a child.

cliff1066™ posted a photo:

1994 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Spot News Photography by Paul Watson, Toronto Star

For his photograph, published in many American newspapers, of a U.S. soldier's body being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu by a mob of jeering Somalis.

oracleofxamar posted a photo:

A Somali soldier walks inside a church in ruins 27 March 2007 in Mogadishu. Two cars exploded in overnight attacks on an Ethiopian military compound in Mogadishu, killing an apparent suicide attacker and a taxi driver who was shot when Ethiopian troops retaliated, officials said Tuesday..
AFP PHOTO/JOSE CENDON (Photo credit should read JOSE CENDON/AFP/Getty Images)

Giacomo Polinari posted a photo:

Somali policemen stand guard near the body of one of two men killed by an explosive device they were planting next to a road in Mogadishu, police said on February 18, 2010. The two Somalis killed by an explosive device they were planting next to a road in Mogadishu were targeting government officials, according to police. Body parts were scattered around a small hole sunk by the explosive. AFP PHOTO/MUSTAFA ABDI (Photo credit should read MUSTAFA ABDI/AFP/Getty Images)

Giacomo Polinari posted a photo:

Somali policemen stand guard near the body of one of two men killed by an explosive device they were planting next to a road in Mogadishu, police said on February 18, 2010. The two Somalis killed by an explosive device they were planting next to a road in Mogadishu were targeting government officials, according to police. Body parts were scattered around a small hole sunk by the explosive. AFP PHOTO/MUSTAFA ABDI (Photo credit should read MUSTAFA ABDI/AFP/Getty Images)

UNHCR posted a photo:

Afgooye, an impoverished town in Somalia, has seen the arrival of some 41,000 Somalis displaced by the violence and fightings in Mogadishu. Conditions are rough but UNHCR and its partners have been distributing plastic sheeting, kitchen sets, mattresses, jerry cans and other supplies to some 35,000 people.
UNHCR / S. Abdulle / April 2007.

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UNHCR posted a photo:

Families load their belongings into and onto a minibus before fleeing Mogadishu.
UNHCR / A. Albadri

Fresh fighting drives more Somalis from Mogadishu, leaves many dead

NAIROBI, Kenya, February 12 (UNHCR) – Fresh fighting between government forces and the Al-Shabaab militia in the Somali capital of Mogadishu is displacing thousands of civilians. Reportedly, some 24 civilians have been killed and 40 injured in the latest clashes, which erupted on Wednesday.

"We are very concerned about the escalating violence in south and central Somalia, including the capital, which is causing large-scale displacement and human suffering," said a UNHCR spokesperson. "We call upon all parties to the conflict to respect international humanitarian law, breaches of which have been the main cause of displacement in the capital and elsewhere in the last year."

Some residents had begun to stream out of Mogadishu a few days before the latest clashes following reports of a major military build-up and a possible government offensive against the armed opposition groups occupying parts of the city. Since the beginning of February, more than 8,000 people have left the city to escape the fighting that is said to be raging in several areas, especially in the northern suburbs of Haliwaa, Yaaqshiid and Wardhiigleey.

Many have reportedly gone to other relatively safe areas of the capital or to the Afgooye corridor, where there are already an estimated 366,000 people displaced by previous conflicts. The corridor, which stretches some 30 kilometres west of Mogadishu, has one of the largest concentrations of displaced people in the world.

More than a quarter-of-a-million civilians have been forced to flee Mogadishu since May 2009, when armed opposition groups first launched attacks aimed at ousting the newly installed transitional government.

"We are stepping up our preparedness to intervene and deliver emergency relief to the affected population as soon as the security situation permits. As with other humanitarian actors, our own access is affected by conflict," the UNHCR spokesperson said.

Somalia is one of the countries generating the highest number of displaced people in the world. It has more than 1.4 million internally displaced people, while more than 560,000 Somalis live as refugees in neighbouring and nearby countries.

Ismail Warsameh posted a photo:

Ismail Warsameh

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Ismail Warsameh

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Ismail Warsameh

Albany Associates posted a photo:

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Albany Associates posted a photo:

President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, President of Somalia.

Albany Associates posted a photo:

Women stand in front of a gate inside Villa Somalia, where the Transitional Federal Government resids in a large compound, well protected by heavily armed AMISOM troops.

Albany Associates posted a photo:

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Albany Associates posted a photo:

Fishing with a hand line from the harbour wall in Mogadishu. One of the few places under government control, open to the outside world, the number of vessels trading from Somalia have reduced dramatically in the last 20 years.

Albany Associates posted a photo: