Thousands flee Somalia as deadly fighting continues

Hundreds have been killed in clashes between Somalia's Islamic militia and the country's secular government while the United Nations issued a call for peace during a lull in fighting.

Sporadic gunfire and shelling could be heard yesterday around Baidoa, the UN-backed government's only stronghold, but residents and officials said the worst of the current fighting appeared to be over.

Thousands of Somalis have fled their homes as troops loyal to the two-year-old interim administration fought Islamic fighters who had advanced on Baidoa, about 140 miles northwest of the capital of Mogadishu. Islamic militiamen control Mogadishu along with most of southern Somalia.

Islamic forces have vowed to continue attacks to drive out troops from neighbouring Ethiopia, a largely Christian nation that is providing military support.

"We will now start our real attack against the invaders and would not stop until we force the Ethiopians out of our country," Sheik Ibrahim Shukri Abuu-Zeynab, a spokesman for the Islamic movement, told reporters in Mogadishu.

Late yesterday, Ethiopia accused the Islamic movement of "massive infiltration" across the border into Ethiopia.

"The situation in Somalia has turned from bad to worse," the statement said. "Ethiopia has been patient so far but there is a limit to this."

In Kismayo, a strategic seaport captured from the government by Islamic militia in September, several foreign Arab fighters were seen by residents unloading from ships.

Government officials said more than 600 Islamic fighters had been killed during four days of clashes. Islamic militia said they had killed around 400 Ethiopians and government fighters.

The UN issued a statement in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, yesterday calling for an "immediate end" to the conflict. It accused both sides of using increasing numbers of child soldiers. "This conflict will push the children of Somalia into further dire crisis," the UN said.

Samir Hosni, the Arab League's special envoy to Somalia, told a London-based Arab newspaper that he expected peace talks to resume in January.

It was unclear how long the guns would remain quiet, as earlier yesterday four Ethiopian attack helicopters and about 20 tanks headed for battle, witnesses and a government official said.

The increasingly violent clashes and deployment of attack helicopters could mean a major conflict in this volatile region. Ethiopia, which has one of the largest armies in the region, and its bitter rival, Eritrea, could use Somalia as the ground for a proxy war. While Ethiopia backs the internationally recognised government, Eritrea backs the Islamic movement.

Somalia has not had an effective government since warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, plunging the country into chaos.