Groups opposed to Somalia's interim government have fought in and around the capital

Ethiopian troops battled Somali groups opposed to the country's interim government in north Mogadishu on Friday, forcing residents to stay in their homes.
 

As the violence intensified, the UN refugee agency said that 213,000 people have fled Mogadishu in the past two months.

"People are reported to still be fleeing the capital," said Ron Redmond, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. 

Heavy arms

There was no information on Friday's casualties, but witnesses said Ethiopian troops using tanks, mortars and machine guns faced insurgents carrying rocket launchers and assault rifles.

The new clashes come after scores of people were injured Thursday's fighting, which saw rockets land in a crowded market.

"We have admitted 71 [people]... 41 of them are seriously injured and the other 30 had minor injuries," a doctor at the Madina hospital told Reuters said in reference to Thursday's casualties.
 
Witnesses also told the AFP news agency that eight people were killed when a mortar landed in a bus station in the south of the city on Thursday.
 
In another attack, a suicide car bomb exploded at an Ethiopian army base on the outskirts of Mogadishu, officials and witnesses said.

A witness contradicted Jelle's account, saying he saw wounded Ethiopian soldiers at the scene.
 
Hundreds of Ethiopian soldiers live at the base, which is surrounded by a low wall and has an ungated entrance.
 
The latest clashes come weeks after four days of fighting killed 1,000 people at the end of March.
 
A truce since then has failed to prevent sporadic violence.
 
At least seven people also died on Wednesday in separate fighting.
 
The Ethiopian-backed interim government has been attempting to maintain order in Mogadishu against resistance from fighters loyal to the Union of Islamic Courts and from the local Hawiye clan after their forces drove out the Islamic courts from large areas of the country that the conservative group controlled.
 
Also on Thursday, an Ethiopian military truck exploded on the outskirts of Mogadishu, possibly killing the soldiers on board, said a witness, who did not know what caused the explosion.
 
The truck was one of two carrying Ethiopian soldiers travelling on the main road to key southern Somalia towns. The explosion took place about 20km south of Mogadishu.

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