50 dead in renewed Mogadishu fighting

MOGADISHU, May 25 (Reuters) Terrified Mogadishu residents hid in their homes from flying bullets in the battered capital today as fierce fighting between rival militias killed at least 50 people, witnesses said.

Firing mortars, grenades and anti-aircraft guns, militia linked to Islamic courts squared off with gunmen for a self-styled anti-terrorism coalition of warlords, in a resumption of the worst violence in Mogadishu for a decade.

''I am sure 50 people have died, the wounded are countless because mortars and missiles were hitting everywhere,'' Ali Nur, alliance militia member who was wounded in the fighting, told Reuters by telephone as he left the hospital.

By this afternoon, the fighting in Kilometre Four area, where the main battle had taken place, had subsided. But it continued in the Galgato and Dayniile areas.

Reuters SI DB2047