By Aweys Yusuf
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali government forces battling Islamist-led insurgents ordered two more radio stations off the air on Tuesday, as a U.N. envoy said the latest fighting had made the country's humanitarian crisis the worst in Africa.
Authorities in the Horn of Africa nation often accuse local broadcasters of supporting the rebels. On Monday they shut down Shabelle Radio for the eighth time this year. Then on Tuesday, heavily armed troops raided Simba Radio and Radio Banadir.
"They terrorized the employees ... All the reporters panicked and ran when they saw the guns," Radio Banadir's deputy director, Ali Muhamed Aden, told Reuters.
Mustafa Haji, the chief editor at Simba Radio, said an officer told him the order taking them off air would apply to all independent stations operating in the capital Mogadishu.
Rampant insecurity keeps most foreign correspondents out of Somalia, so locals are left to report on an insurgency that is targeting the interim government and its Ethiopian allies.
Speaking after meeting aid workers in neighboring Kenya, the U.N. special envoy to Somalia, Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, said he could see no reason to close a radio or newspaper.
"They (the media) are helping people to help themselves. I think it is something to be avoided at all costs," he said.
"WORST IN AFRICA"
The latest effort by Ethiopian forces seeking to crush the rebels in Mogadishu has triggered fighting that has killed at least 70 people and driven tens of thousands from their homes.
Hundreds of thousands have fled the city so far this year due to earlier battles, and Abdallah said Somalia's humanitarian crisis was now "the worst in Africa," including Sudan.
"It has been like that since the start of the year, and the fighting of recent days has only made it worse."
The U.N. envoy called on Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf to ensure that a new prime minister would help "open up the system to people who do not agree, to be more inclusive."
Former Premier Ali Mohamed Gedi resigned last month after months of feuding with Yusuf. His successor is yet to be named.
The Somali president gave no clues during a visit to Nairobi on Tuesday, but said reports that Gedi was trying to re-open talks between them rang hollow.
"If he is proposing any dialogue now, why didn't he do it during his three years in office? It doesn't have credibility."
Yusuf told reporters he would talk to any Somali or Somali group not designated as terrorists, including members of an opposition alliance founded in September in Asmara, Eritrea.
"If they still want to solve this through political means, we are still willing to talk to them," he said.
He blamed the latest fighting on groups wanting to "score political points," and called on residents to resist them.
"They could become vigilantes, they could confront it."
(Additional reporting by Andrew Cawthorne and Bryson Hull in Nairobi; Writing by Daniel Wallis; Editing by Giles Elgood)
SOURCE: Reuters, November 13, 2007