Six-year old killed in Somalia shelling

A child of six was among three people killed in fierce overnight fighting in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. Heavy weapons could be heard across southern Mogadishu for two hours. Many mortars fell in residential areas.

An African Union (AU) spokesman in the city said AU peacekeepers had responded after being attacked. Islamist insurgents have recently been gaining ground from the government. The AU first denied that peacekeepers had been targeted but others now admit they came under fire from mortars and heavy artillery. The child was among those killed in their sleep when a shell hit their home near the AU base, local resident Farhiyo Sharif Awale told the BBC. At least eight people have been taken to hospital, according to medics in the area.

The attack came ahead of a meeting by the East African region grouping, Igad, which is due to discuss the Somali crisis. The weak, Western-backed government only controls part of Mogadishu and a few other pockets of territory. Some 4,000 AU peacekeepers are in the city, backing up the administration of moderate Islamist President Sheikh Sherif Sheikh Ahmed.

A recent upsurge in fighting has forced some 43,000 people to flee their homes in less than two weeks, the United Nations says. Islamist fighters on Sunday seized the strategic town of Jowhar. On Tuesday, eyewitnesses told the BBC that Ethiopian troops had returned to Somalia, four months after leaving. They had helped government forces oust Islamists from Mogadishu in 2006 but withdrew in January under a UN-brokered peace deal.

Somalia has not had a functioning national government since 1991 and years of fighting have left some three million people – a third of the population – needing food aid. Years of fighting between rival warlords and an inability to deal with famine and disease have led to the deaths of up to one million people. Comprised of a former British protectorate and an Italian colony, Somalia was created in 1960 when the two territories merged. Since then its development has been slow. Relations with neighbours have been soured by its territorial claims on Somali-inhabited areas of Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children