Garowe Online (Garowe)
21 January 2008
Mogadishu — Violence between rebels and Ethiopian troops in the Somali capital Mogadishu killed two civilians Monday as a United Nations delegation visited the city.
The battle erupted around the livestock market in north Mogadishu after Ethiopian troops conducting routine search operations came under fire, witnesses said.
One of the two dead victims was a seven-year old girl, according to a relative. Both victims were killed in the crossfire.
Unconfirmed reports said two Ethiopian soldiers were wounded during the fighting.
In a separate incident, Somali soldiers in the outskirts of southern Mogadishu wounded two civilians today.
Meanwhile, a UN delegation met privately with Prime Minister Nur "Adde" Hassan Hussein at the presidential palace Villa Somalia.
The UN delegation is on a fact-finding mission regarding the possible deployment of UN peacekeepers to replace a small contingent of African Union troops serving in Mogadishu, police spokesman Abdullahi Shasha told Garowe Online.
Earlier this week, the UN delegation visited Garowe, the capital of Puntland region in north Somalia, and the port city of Kismayo, 500km south of Mogadishu.
Debate has raged within the United Nations regarding the deployment of UN peacekeeping troops to Somalia, a country UN officials say is undergoing Africa's worst humanitarian crisis.
More than 6,000 civilians were killed in Mogadishu last year and half the city's population displaced by the war, according to human rights groups.
Islamist-led rebels have vowed to continue attacking Somali and Ethiopian government troops until the Ethiopian army withdraws from Somali soil.
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