MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Mortar shells slammed into a residential area in Somalia's capital, killing at least 10 people — including a mother and her child, witnesses and a hospital official said Tuesday.
The bloodshed Monday came as Ethiopian troops backing Somalia's shaky government battled Islamic insurgents who have been fighting an Iraq-style guerrilla war for more than a year. Thousands of civilians have been killed.
"There were 40 of us gathered under a wall to shield us from the mortars, but one landed near us," Mogadishu resident Shamsa Kheyre told The Associated Press from her hospital bed.
Kheyre said she saw six bodies — including a mother and her young son. Another resident, Shekhey Nur Ahmed, said he and his friends collected the bodies of four people nearby.
"All of them died because of mortar shelling fired from the Ethiopian base," Ahmed said.
Long one of the world's most violent cities, Mogadishu has been decimated in recent months as the U.N.-backed government and its allies try to hold off the insurgency.
On Sunday, a bomb hidden under a pile of garbage killed at least 20 people, half of them women who were sweeping the street in Somalia's capital.
Somalia has been at war since a group of warlords overthrew a socialist dictator in 1991 and then spent years fighting each other. Over the weekend, 10 of the government's 15 ministers broke with the prime minister and announced they would resign.
Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein said Saturday that the resignations were designed "to derail the ongoing reconciliation process." On Sunday, he nominated five new ministers.
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