Anti-government fighters have fired back with machineguns, missiles and rocket-propelled grenades as fighting raged on Thursday.

"This is the heaviest attack we've seen since the war started," the fighter said.

Hospital hit

After a night of sporadic shelling, columns of Ethiopian tanks ploughed into northern Mogadishu, firing mortars and rockets onto suspected enemy positions, as machinegun fire ricochetted across neighbourhoods.

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A missile slammed through the roof of a nearby children's hospital packed with wounded civilians.

The shell that hit the children's hospital exploded in a ward housing between 20 and 30 wounded adults, said Wilhelm Huber, regional director for the SOS Children's Villages.

The children had been evacuated earlier because shells were hitting the compound, Huber said.

"What is happening now cannot go on," he said. "People are desperate. This is a tragic situation."

Residents said fighting had spread to the northern Ex-Control, Huriwa and Suuqahoola areas, threatening to engulf part of the city so far spared from weeks of artillery duels.

Civilians flee

Terrified civilians scrambled to escape stray bullets as buildings were set on fire and Mogadishu was transformed into a virtual "ghost town", residents said.

"The heaviest fighting is raging this morning. They are exchanging everything they have, from bullets from anti-aircraft shells, no-one can put his head up," said Salah Doli, a resident of Jamhuriha area.

"Mortars have hit shops and buildings destroying them and setting others ablaze," he added.

Resident Ahmed Suad said shelling had destroyed buildings in the Tawfiq area, forcing civilians to flee.

"As I was fleeing my home, I saw several bodies lying in the streets," he said.

"This is some of the heaviest fighting ever in northern Mogadishu."

Locals, officials and human rights activists say nearly 300 people have been killed in a week of clashes.

Ethiopia on Thursday rejected allegations from human rights groups that its troops were targeting civilians, saying they had "taken every possible precaution to avoid or minimise civilian loss of life and civilian casualties".

"Ethiopian troops have never deliberately or knowingly targeted civilians, despite the current operational difficulties," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Dozens of corpses remain rotting in the streets as the fighting has prevented aid workers from collecting them

The United Nations says nearly 340,000 people have fled the city, which was once home to at least one million people, and it has warned of a looming catastrophe.

The Somali government has said there will be no let-up in the fighting until it wipes out the anti-government fighters.

 

Scores die in Ethiopia oil attack Tuesday, 24 April 2007,

Rebel gunmen have killed at least 74 people in an attack on an oil field in Ethiopia's remote Somali region, the Ethiopian government says. Sixty-five Ethiopians and nine Chinese oil workers were killed, while seven Chinese were also taken captive in the incident, an official said. Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi called it a cold-blooded "massacre". A spokesman for a separatist group, the Ogaden National Liberation Front, said it had launched the attack. The clashes took place at an oil field in Abole, a small town about 120km (75 miles) from the regional capital, Jijiga. 'Atrocious attack' Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles Zenawi quickly condemned the attack. "Something of a massacre has happened," he said. "It was a cold-blooded murder, we are pursuing the perpetrators and will see to it that it doesn't happen again." A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said: "The Chinese government strongly condemns this atrocious armed attack." An adviser to the Ethiopian prime minister, Berekat Simon, blamed the ONLF, which he said had the backing of the Eritrean government. A spokesman for the ONLF in London, Abdirahman Mahdi, said Ethiopian troops had been forcing nomadic tribes to leave their traditional grazing areas. "Because of that we had to take action," he said. "We have warned the Chinese government and the Ethiopian government that... they don't have a right to drill there," he told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme. "Unfortunately nobody heeds our warning and we have to defend our territorial integrity." He disputed the government's figures, saying seven Chinese were killed and five seized. The captives were not being treated as hostages and would be handed over to appropriate authorities, he said. "We will treat humanely all those under our protection." A Chinese oil worker said about 200 gunmen attacked the oil field. The workers were employed by the Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau, part of China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation, China's Xinhua news agency reported. Gunmen briefly took control of the field after a 50-minute fire fight with soldiers protecting it, Xu Shuang, a manager for the oil group, told the agency. Violent politics In recent years, China has been working to increase its influence and investment in Africa as it looks to secure energy supplies for the future. The Somali region - known locally as the Ogaden - is known for its often violent clan politics, the BBC's Amber Henshaw reports from Addis Ababa. The ONLF has in the past made threats against foreign companies working with the Ethiopian government to exploit the region's natural resources. The ONLF has been waging a low-level insurgency with the aim of breaking away from Ethiopia. The incident will also step up tensions in the region, which borders Somalia - where there are often clashes between Ethiopian troops and Islamists, our correspondent adds Source: BBCNEWS/Africa

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