Somali Islamists seize key town of Jowhar - "catastrophic" humanitarian situation

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Somali Islamists seize key town of Jowhar

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=4525529

A group of forty aid agencies urge world not to forget Somali crisis.

By Aweys Yusuf
Mar 26, 2008

MOGADISHU (Reuters) -

Somalia's Islamist fighters seized control of the town of Jowhar on Wednesday, the most
significant of several towns captured in recent months from the Western-backed interim government.


Somali insurgents, centre, faces covered, speak to Somalis in Mogadishu,
who returned to their homes after Ethiopian troops withdrew from some
neighborhoods in northwest Mogadishu, Somalia, Saturday Dec. 8 2007.
Hundreds of people have returned to see their homes after the Ethiopian
tanks rolled out in the early hours of Saturday morning. (AP Photo)


Seven people including a child were killed in the attack, which highlights the government's inability
to assert its authority on Somalia despite support from Ethiopian and African Union troops.

Forty aid agencies urged the world on Wednesday to focus attention on what they called a
"catastrophic" humanitarian situation in the country, where hundreds of thousands of people
are suffering from war, drought and food shortages.

A 15-month Islamist-led insurgency, which has killed more than 6,500 people, has seen a resurgence
in recent months.

The fighters had seized four smaller towns and a military checkpoint near Mogadishu before Wednesday's
capture of Jowhar, a town 90 km (55 miles) north of Mogadishu that served as a temporary base for the
interim government in 2005.

"Seven people, including a woman who was a government soldier and her small child that she was
carrying on her back were killed early in the morning when Islamic Courts fighters seized the
town," resident Abdi Ali Osman told Reuters by phone.

He said the Islamist gunmen later freed all prisoners in Jowhar, which was once controlled by
Mogadishu's mayor -- former warlord Mohamed Dheere.

A spokesman for the Islamic Courts forces, Abdirahin Isse Addow, said four government soldiers
were killed in the fighting.

"Our troops entered Jowhar at six in the morning. Few government troops fought us and we
defeated them, forcing them to run away," he told Reuters by phone from an undisclosed location.

Meanwhile, local elders in the coastal town of Merca, 100 km (62 miles), south of the capital,
said Ethiopian troops backing the interim administration have occupied the town since Sunday.

"They called the elders and told us they arrived in Merca for security concerns and that they
heard that al Shabaab groups were inside the town," local elder Mohamud Kulow Aweys told Reuters
by phone.

Somali Islamists seize key town of Jowhar

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