20/08/07 - On 18 August at 11.00 pm fighting broke out between government troops and insurgents around the SOS Children's Village Mogadishu.
The fighting lasted just over an hour and in a mortar attack two shells landed in the road between the children's village and the SOS Hospital (which is directly opposite the village) while one shell landed in the hospital compound near the guards' room. Three people were wounded, including one SOS security guard. They were admitted to the SOS Hospital and two were transferred on Sunday morning to the ICRC Hospital in Mogadishu due to the intensity of their injuries.
The SOS Children's Village is located in a part of northern Mogadishu where insurgents are known to be hiding. On 8 August government troops moved into the area in an effort to flush them out. Since then they been encamped close to the SOS project and fighting has broken out on a sporadic basis, usually at night. All the children and co-workers are safe in the SOS Children's Village and the situation is being monitored constantly.
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
