By Guled Mohamed MOGADISHU, May 14 (Reuters) - As the mortar detonated, Ugandan peacekeepers who had first smothered it in sand bags reeled out of the small Mogadishu house, choking on dust. The soldiers were part of an African Union (AU) team seeking out unexploded ordnance scattered throughout the city by fierce battles between allied Somali-Ethiopian forces and insurgents. Some 1,300 civilians were killed and thousands injured in the fighting, which was the heaviest in the chaotic coastal capital for 16 years. And it left behind a deadly legacy. The unexploded 120mm mortar was found lodged in the floor of Osman Haji Warsame home in the city's Kalasabalabare district. "Now I can sleep in comfort," the 68-year-old father of 12 said after the Ugandans carried out a controlled detonation. "We left because the mortar was still lodged in the house," he told Reuters. "We could not even sleep inside. I think from tonight onwards I will sleep peacefully." Relative calm has returned to Mogadishu since the interim government and its Ethiopian military backers declared victory over the rebels and clan militia fighters two weeks ago. Some residents have returned from squalid conditions outside the city, where they faced lack of water, hunger and outbreaks of disease. Back at home, the biggest threat is the unexploded mortars, grenades and rockets scattered during the battles. The Ugandan operations attracted many curious residents, and Captain Paddy Ankunda, the spokesman for the AU force, said members of the public should tell his men where to look. Some 20 mortar bombs had so far been made safe, he said. Taking a break from his hazardous work in the hot sun, a Ugandan soldier who identified himself only as Lieutenant Musa, said the exercise could take up to a year, but was essential. "If a child hit this unexploded mortar with a piece of metal, he or she will not leave here," he told Reuters, nodding at half of a dull grey shell sticking out of the ground. Among a group of young boys watching intently nearby, their football game forgotten, was 13-year-old Abdinasir Adow. "I do not know what this is, I only hear people saying it is a mortar," he said. "If I would have come across it, I would have never known what it is. It must be very bad."
