By Jill Mowbray

I am nearing the end of my three month mission in Ethiopia in the Kambata and Tambaro regions on a malnutrition project. When I look back and reflect on the last three months there are many emotions and fond memories that I wish to hold on to for a very long time… and quite a few that I am sure I will remember, because it is important, but which are not happy ones.

Ones to remember are:

The children that recover from near death, and smile at you for the first time a few days later.

The parents that thank you for providing their children with nutritional support and preventing them from becoming seriously malnourished.

The pregnant women in the supplementary programme who return a few weeks later holding a new-born child, healthy and happy.

Working alongside National Staff sharing jokes and laughing until we cry.

Dancing with the mothers of Children in the Stabilisation Centre which became a daily activity in Mudulla, and playing with the children who are getting ready for discharge.

Unhappy memories are:

Children standing in the rain and mud, wearing only a thin shirt and shivering with cold.

Crowds with over a 1000 people surging forward at the entrance to the Outpatient Theraputic Programme.

Women holding small children and babies, desperate for help, falling over in front of me when the crowd push to get in the centre, as I try and close the gate for our own safety.

Having to turn people away who do not meet the criteria for admission when they have walked over 20km in the hope that they will receive food.

Chronically sick children and adults who have no access to healthcare.

In the places I have worked, Hadero and Mudulla, I have seen thousands of people benefit from our programme, and in the whole MSF emergency response, there have been over 40,000 people so far – both severely and moderately malnourished patients.

Crops are now starting to be harvested in certain areas. But there are still concerns: the day before my departure, I saw two children die from malaria. Also, who knows if the crops will be sufficient. And in other areas, the main harvest is expected in November.

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Jill Clare Mowbray is a British nurse working on the nutritional emergency programme in southern Ethiopia. She is in charge of the outreach therapeutic programme (OTP) of Hadero, SNNP region, one of the districts where MSF has cared for most severely malnourished patients.

NAIROBI (Xinhua) — A German citizen and his local wife who were kidnapped in northern Somalia on Saturday have been released, a regional maritime official confirmed on Monday.

Andrew Mwangura, the East African Coordinator of the Seafarers Assistance Program (SAP), said the couple were released early Monday but the two Somali gunmen were seriously injured.

“The German hostage and his wife are free but two out of the six Somali gunmen who kidnapped them have been seriously injured and are in hospital,” Mwangura told Xinhua by telephone.

The hostage was heading to visit his in-laws when six armed gunmen took them towards the hills to the east.

Reports said that the German, whom the Somali authorities refused to identify, had been in the Bosasso town for several weeks, spending time with his wife’s family.

The kidnapping of foreigners and aid workers for ransom is common in lawless Somalia, where there has not been an effective central government since former dictator Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991.

Last month, pirates from the north of the Horn of Africa country freed two German hostages who they had held hostage since June. A member of the gang said a ransom of one million U.S. dollars had been paid.

By Ibrahim Mohamed

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Mortar bombs hit a Mogadishu market on Monday in a second day of fighting that has killed at least 42 people, witnesses said.

Islamist insurgents are battling the Somali government and their Ethiopian Woyanne military backers in a nearly two-year conflict that some are calling Africa’s Iraq.

Fighting worsened at the weekend, even as U.N. officials sought to broker a ceasefire between government and opposition representatives in neighbouring Djibouti.

Somali [puppet] police and the hardline al Shabaab Islamists blamed each other for the attacks.

“Al Shabaab militant group attacked government bases and foreign troop bases. They also threw mortars at residential areas… So al Shabaab is responsible for all that has happened today and last night,” said police spokesman Abdulahi Hassan Barise.

In the biggest incident, shells hit packed Bakara market, horrifying shoppers and killing about 30 people, residents said.

Al Shabaab said government and Ethiopian Woyanne troops had targeted the residential area considered a stronghold of the Islamist insurgents, after rebel attacks on the presidential palace.

“When troops die in attacks they (government troops) target civilians like … at Bakara Market today,” Muktar Roboow, an al Shabaab official told Reuters.

Ali Dhere, chairman of Bakara business committee, said government-fired shells hit the market, which lies in a densely-populated area.

“We don’t know why they are targeting Bakara because this is a market, a public place,” he told Reuters.

Bakara traders described a terrible scene.

“We saw four people die on the spot. Their flesh and bones were scattered into pieces,” said clothes seller Nur Omar.

Abdi Nur Hassan, who runs an electronics stall, said two missiles landed nearby. “I have seen six people die, some of them missing legs and hands. We collected their bodies, but it is difficult to separate them,” he said.

As well as the presidential palace, the Somali rebels also attacked two bases of African Union (AU) peacekeepers, and shelled the city’s main airport on Monday where a commercial flight defied a ban by the al Shabaab group to land.

Residents also said at least a dozen people had died in fighting on Sunday. “A missile hit a neighbour’s house and killed nine people in the same family,” one resident, Farhiya Abdullahi, told Reuters of the worst incident.

After being chased away from their power base, Mogadishu, Islamists launched an insurgency in early 2007 that has killed nearly 10,000 civilians and an unknown number of combatants.

They have become increasingly bold in the last two months, stepping up attacks in the Somali capital and capturing the strategic southern port of Kismayu.

Al Shabaab is on Washington’s terrorism list, and Western security services say the Islamists have close links to al Qaeda. Rebel leaders, however, depict themselves as nationalists fighting an unwanted occupation by Ethiopia Woyanne.

During lulls in the fighting, Mogadishu residents rushed their wounded to the city’s few clinics. Staff at Madina hospital said they had admitted 65 wounded people since Sunday.

(Additional reporting by Abdi Mohamed, Abdi Sheikh)

By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Somalia’s warring sides pounded the capital with mortar rounds and gunfire Monday, killing 30 people — including a family of seven — as insurgents who want to topple the government gain significant power.

Monday’s fighting pitted insurgents against government forces and their Ethiopian Woyanne allies, who come under regular attack in Mogadishu, one of the most violent cities in the world. The violence left bodies in city streets. When the blasts calmed, young men ventured out to transport the gravely wounded to hospitals in rickety wheelbarrows.

“There is blood everywhere, and human flesh on the walls,” Abshir Mohamed Ali, a shop owner at Bakara market, where much of the fighting was centered, told The Associated Press.

The fighting began after Islamic insurgents fired mortars at the capital’s main airport and the presidential palace, said Ali Mohamed Siyad, who chairs Bakara market traders’ association. Soon after, government forces and their Ethiopian Woyanne allies retaliated with mortars and gunfire.

In the past, government officials have suspected insurgents use Bakara market as a base.

Islamic militants with ties to al-Qaida have been fighting the government and its Ethiopian Woyanne allies for control since their combined forces pushed the Islamists from the capital in December 2006. Within weeks of being driven out, the Islamists launched an Iraq-style insurgency that has killed thousands of civilians to date.

In recent weeks, the militants appear to be gaining strength and sidelining the fragile government. The group, known as the Council of Islamic Courts, has taken over the port town of Kismayo, Somalia’s third-largest city, and dismantled pro-government roadblocks. They also effectively closed the Mogadishu airport by threatening to attack any plane using it.

“We keep recruiting new fighters to prepare them for the holy war against Ethiopian Woyanne troops in our country and their Somali stooges,” said Sheik Muhumed, a commander with al-Shabab, the group’s military wing.

The United States considers al-Shabab a terrorist group, raising fears Somalia could become a haven for al-Qaida.

The Western-backed Somali government, meanwhile, has failed to deliver any basic services and comes under daily attack. The administration had no immediate comment on Monday’s bloodshed.

Among the dead in Monday’s attacks were seven members of one family — a mother, grandmother, four children and an uncle — when a mortar round landed near their home. The one survivor was a 2-year-old boy who escaped with minor injuries.

“This boy will remain a reminder of this sad story,” said Safiya Mohamed Dahir, the children’s uncle.

He said the eldest child, a 12-year-old girl, had amassed years of heartbreaking knowledge growing up in Mogadishu.

“One thing I will always remember is how she could tell the difference between the sounds of gunfire, bombs and mortars, at her young age,” Dahir said. “She would yell, ‘Explosion! Mortar! And gunfire!’ And now she’s gone.”

Dr. Dahir Dhere of Medina Hospital said at least 60 were wounded, including nine children.

Siyad said he and other workers had counted about 30 bodies. Other witnesses described at least 19.

The African Union has sent about 2,000 peacekeepers to Somalia, but they generally are confined to the airport because security is so bad in Mogadishu. The U.N. has tried to push peace talks between the government and the opposition, but a recent deal with a more moderate faction of the Islamic group seems only to have worsened the violence.

Al-Shabab, the driving force behind much of the violence, denounced the talks and did not participate.

Besides near-daily fighting in the capital, foreigners, journalists and humanitarian workers are frequently abducted for ransoms in Somalia. Earlier Monday, Somali forces opened fire on kidnappers to free a German man and his Somali wife, said Muse Gelle Yusuf, governor of the northern port of Bosasso.

In Berlin, Foreign Ministry spokesman Jens Ploetner said the couple were doing well.

(AP Writer Elizabeth A. Kennedy contributed to this report from Nairobi, Kenya.)