UNITED NATIONS, May 11 (UPI) -- Battles raged across the capital Mogadishu after the United Nations sidestepped deeper involvement and further sanctions in war-torn Somalia.
Five days of fierce clashes between warlords and Islamic fundamentalists in Mogadishu have resulted in hundreds of injuries and over 130 deaths. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour Thursday said there was frustration "the international community was insufficiently engaged in a country that needed a huge amount of assistance and where a large part of the country still needed governance to take root."
Last week a U.N. monitoring group report said "arms, military materiel and financial support continue to flow like a river to various actors, in violation of the arms embargo," vastly increasing militarization and volatility.
Because the transitional federal government has proven ineffective, the report recommended the adoption of an export embargo on charcoal and a ban on foreign fishing vessels and the export of fish taken in Somali waters -- two primary means by which warlords and opposition groups fund operations.
Yet as three foes fought to fill a power vacuum, the U.N. Security Council Wednesday extended a 1992 arms embargo and established an investigative body, but refused to implement further sanctions on the Horn of Africa country.
"I am deeply disturbed by the daily reports of civilian deaths and injuries and of families fleeing for their lives," said Annan's Special Representative for Somalia Francois Lonseny Fall in Nairobi Wednesday, citing the use of heavy machine guns, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. "By taking their grievances to the streets, these armed groups have effectively unleashed a war on their own people."
The International Committee of the Red Cross and Somali Red Crescent Society were "extremely concerned about the consequences in humanitarian terms of the intense armed clashes currently under way in Mogadishu."
