By Sahal Abdulle
"Anybody who has any means of fleeing the area has left," said Mohamed, a resident near the scene of the clashes.
At least 230 people have died since the latest fighting escalated on Wednesday, local human rights activists say. Hospital wards were so crowded doctors tended to the wounded in tents and under trees.
An earlier four-day spike in violence at the end of March killed more than 1,000 people, mostly civilians.
The government is struggling to gain full control of the capital four months after ousting rival Islamist leaders who ruled much of southern Somalia for the second half of 2006.
Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi said there would be no let-up in the offensive until the government crushed armed resistance by Islamist fighters, backed by foreign jihadists and disgruntled militiamen from the dominant local Hawiye clan.
"Until the terrorists are wiped out from Somalia, the fighting will go on," Gedi was quoted as saying by the local independent broadcaster Shabelle.
"I want to tell the Somali people and the world that there is no so-called fighting between Hawiye clan and the government. The battle is clearly between terrorists linked to al Qaeda and the government supported by Ethiopian and African Union troops."
An African Union (AU) force of about 1,500 Ugandan peacekeepers, working with Gedi's government and targeted by the insurgents, has so far failed to staunch the bloodshed.
INCESSANT SHELLING
The latest battles are centered on an insurgent stronghold in Mogadishu where corpses lay rotting in the fierce sun, some mutilated and decapitated by the incessant shelling.
Clutching their belongings, scores of Somalis streamed out of the coastal capital, part of the biggest exodus since warlords overthrew a dictator in 1991 and plunged the Horn of Africa country into 16 years of lawlessness.
Nearly half a million people have fled Mogadishu, thousands sleeping under trees or in the open in surrounding towns and villages. Before the fighting Mogadishu's population was estimated at between 1-2.4 million people.
The United Nations has warned of a looming catastrophe, with diseases like cholera already rife.
Residents said clashes also broke out on Monday between government forces and gunmen in the southern port of Kismayu. It was not immediately clear what provoked the fighting.
"There are a lot of areas that cannot be entered due to heavy fighting," said a resident driving the wounded to hospital.
A Reuters witness said at least seven people were injured.
Highlighting the threat to aid efforts, the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said on Monday a mortar bomb had hit its outpatient clinic in Mogadishu on Friday. No one was hurt.
"With so few medical facilities available in Mogadishu it is crucial people are able to access those that are still functioning," MSF said in a statement.
(Additional reporting by Sahra Abdi Ahmed in Kismayu)
Source: Reuters, April 23, 2007