(Los Angeles Times) MOGADISHU, SOMALIA — Along the ghostly streets of Mogadishu, just about the only traffic nowadays consists of starving cats and goats searching for food. They race toward the occasional pedestrian, crying for scraps.

Their owners fled the city’s violence long ago, leaving more than half of Somalia’s capital deserted. Shops are closed. Burned-out cars sit abandoned by the side of the road. Other than soldiers and militiamen, only the most desperate of people frequent the streets, including orphans and old women who sometimes are forced to compete with the strays for food.

Most others leave their homes only when necessary. In venturing outside, they hurry to their destinations in silence, heads down, avoiding eye contact with strangers. Few dare use cellphones lest they fall victim to thieves or be accused of spying. There’s no socializing because it’s too risky to stop for chitchat and no one knows whom to trust.

After 17 years of civil war, it’s hard to imagine Somalia could get any worse. It has.

These days, this Horn of Africa nation appears on the verge of a total breakdown, aid officials and residents said.

In addition to a growing insurgency, clan warfare and the lack of a functioning government since 1991, Somalia’s fragile economy is now disintegrating amid hyperinflation and the local effects of a global food crisis that sparked riots this month.

“We are very close to collapse,” said Hassan Rage, a sugar vendor in Mogadishu who earns about $2 a day. Until recently that was enough for his family to survive. But with Somalia’s shilling losing half its value in the last year, he can no longer afford water, lamp oil or charcoal for cooking.

“Sometimes I don’t go home after work and sleep in the mosque,” Rage said. “I can’t face the children empty-handed.”

A United Nations-recognized transitional government, once seen as Somalia’s best hope, is crippled by infighting and largely controlled by former warlords. Ailing President Abdullahi Yusuf, 73, has been in and out of hospitals for the last year. His Cabinet, hunkered down in a heavily guarded district of Mogadishu, retains a tenuous grip on power thanks only to the thousands of Ethiopian Woyanne troops supporting it.

Attacks by insurgents worsen by the day. After a short-lived Islamist government was defeated in 2006, its armed forces shifted to guerrilla tactics, striking government and Ethiopian Woyanne forces and launching hit-and-run attacks in various southern cities.

A U.S. airstrike May 1 killed a top insurgent commander whom American officials accused of having links to Al Qaeda. His followers are vowing to step up their assaults, targeting any Westerners in the region.

This month, the latest in a long string of peace conferences was held in the tiny neighboring nation of Djibouti, but little progress was made.

Meanwhile, the humanitarian crisis is verging on catastrophe, aid groups warn. About one-third of Somalia’s population needs emergency food assistance. One million people have been displaced over the last 18 months, including 40,000 in April. Thousands have been killed in the fighting.

“We are innocent,” pleaded Murayo Siad Roble, a mother of nine. Her husband was killed in November while attempting to find food for the family. “I don’t understand what crime we’ve committed to be punished like this. I’m worried my children will all die.”

U.N. and aid groups, which already had a skeletal presence, are pulling back further because of growing violence. Two World Food Program drivers and three Doctors Without Borders staffers have been killed this year.

Somalia’s social breakdown has hit the young the hardest. They have rarely known peace, stability or even a semblance of order. In one desolate neighborhood, shabbily dressed children played away a recent afternoon. As usual, it was a war game. They carried guns carved from wood and tossed plastic bags filled with ash to mimic the smoke of exploding grenades.

There are three sides in their game: transitional government soldiers, Ethiopian Woyanne troops and insurgents. Insurgents usually trounce the soldiers, who then run to Ethiopians for help. Ethiopians Woyannes chase away the insurgents as they sweep through neighborhoods, terrorizing civilians.

None of the boys seek the role of government soldier. “No one wants to play the ones who are defeated,” said Ahmed Ali, 13, who played the role of insurgent leader.

The real-life drama is not far from this make-believe version. According to an Amnesty International report issued this month, Somalia’s civilians are enduring widespread abuse from all sides. “The people of Somalia are being killed, raped, tortured,” said Michelle Kagari, deputy director of Amnesty International’s Africa program. “Looting is widespread, and entire neighborhoods are being destroyed . . . and no one is being held accountable.”

International human rights groups singled out Ethiopian Woyanne troops for alleged abuses while carrying out anti-insurgency sweeps since November, including an April attack on a Mogadishu mosque in which 21 people were killed, among them seven whose throats were slit.

The insurgents, who have split into at least three rival factions, haven’t spared civilians either. They reportedly killed four foreign teachers in April during an attack on a school. In seaside Merka, Islamic radicals killed four moviegoers by tossing a grenade into a cinema showing a Bollywood film.

The insurgents are recruiting teenagers not much older than those engaged recently in the make-believe game. With offers of $70 cash payments or even just a daily meal, young fighters are being lured into carrying out assassinations, kidnappings and bombings.

Hassan Yare, 17, said he joined Shabab, one of Somalia’s largest militant groups, at age 11. His father, a founding member, brought him to a training camp before he died in battle.

“I promised him that I will continue the holy war after he died,” the teenager said. “And when I have children, I will train them to continue the fight after I am gone.”

By Abukar Albadri and Edmund Sanders, The Los Angeles Times
Special correspondent Albadri reported from Mogadishu and Times staff writer Sanders from Nairobi, Kenya.