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End fighting, Somalis urged

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published April 21, 2007

UNITED NATIONS - Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon called Friday for an immediate end to fighting in Somalia and talks between rival clans to end 16 years of violence and instability.

Three days of fighting this week between Islamic insurgents and Ethiopian troops have killed at least 113 civilians, a Somali human rights group said Friday.

"There is an immediate need to secure an end to the fighting, possibly through a declaration on a cessation of hostilities and a commitment to peace by the transitional federal government and all - or at least a majority of - the armed groups and communities in the capital," Ban said in a report to the U.N. Security Council.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since clan-based warlords toppled dictator Mohammed Siad Barre in 1991 and then turned on each other, sinking the poverty-stricken Horn of Africa nation of seven million into chaos.

The rout in December of the Islamic fundamentalist movement that controlled most of Somalia by Somali government troops and Ethiopian soldiers allowed the country's weak U.N.-backed transitional government to enter the capital, Mogadishu, for the first time since it was established in 2004.

On Feb. 20, the U.N. Security Council authorized an 8,000-strong African Union force to help stabilize Somalia, but the AU has received pledges for only about half the troops and just two battalions from Uganda have been deployed at Mogadishu airport.

The Security Council asked Ban to assist the transitional government in convening a national reconciliation conference and promoting an ongoing all-inclusive political process.

The Security Council also asked the secretary-general to send an assessment mission to Somalia to report on the political and security situation and the possibility of a U.N. peacekeeping operation to replace the AU force.

[Last modified April 21, 2007, 02:34:19]