By Sahal Abdulle MOGADISHU, April 27 (Reuters) - Gunmen plundered computers and bags of sugar from a Coca Cola plant in Mogadishu on Friday during a lull in fighting between allied Somali-Ethiopian troops and insurgents, a local manager said. The unidentified group, who were wearing uniforms, commandeered 12 trucks to drive away the booty seized in the overnight looting spree that took place after the plant was shelled, local Coca Cola manager Bashir Mohamed Araye said. "Our offices were broken into and all computers looted. We had supplies of sugar that were supposed to last the whole year -- they were also looted," added the manager of the Somali-owned franchise in a smart and modern compound in Mogadishu. The odd stray bullet was heard in the Somali capital, a day after Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi declared significant gains in the government's nine-day offensive to end resistance by a group of Islamist fighters, foreign jihadists and some clansmen. But many Somalis, undergoing a refugee exodus worse than Iraq in recent months, were sceptical the war was winding down. There was no respite for medical workers struggling with little or no supplies to patch up the wounded, many ferried to overflowing hospitals in wheelbarrows and donkey carts. Trapped by fighting, several women gave birth in an improvised maternity ward -- a grass hut under a tree, half a kilometre from the University of Mogadishu. "In the last three days, a midwife named Asha Hamari has delivered six babies," resident Abukar Al Badri told Reuters. "DESTRUCTION AND MAYHEM" Mogadishu's worst fighting for 16 years has killed at least 1,300 people since February, locals say, and turned parts of the shell-shattered coastal city into a ghost town. The United Nations on Thursday accused all sides in the Somalia conflict of breaking humanitarian law by indiscriminately firing on civilian areas in Mogadishu. A U.N. spokeswoman said the rate of displacement in Somalia over the past three months was worse than Iraq in the same period. Some 350,000 people have fled Mogadishu since February, more than a third of its one million population. "If you look at the situation from February until now, in that one time frame, more people have been displaced inside Somalia than any place else in the world and that includes Iraq, Darfur...and Sri Lanka," Stephanie Banker, spokeswoman for the U.N. emergency relief coordinator, told the BBC. Thousands of homeless have sought shelter in surrounding town and villages, sleeping under trees or out in the open, vulnerable to disease and gangs of roaming thieves. The United States and European Union have criticised the Somali government and its Ethiopian military allies for obstructing aid flows. Somali and Ethiopian officials have angrily dismissed those allegations. Eritrea blamed arch-foe Ethiopia and its powerful U.S. ally of being behind the "destruction and mayhem" in the region. "The destruction and mayhem wrought in the Horn of Africa by U.S. strategy of domination and the subservience of Ethiopian ruling regimes is immense indeed," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on the government Web site. "This can only provoke resistance by, and aspirations for, independence and liberation through just peoples' struggles." Addis Ababa and Washington accuse Asmara of undermining the Somali government by supporting the insurgents. (Additional reporting by Jack Kimball in Asmara)
