Unexploded ordnance remains threat to squatters

A day after over 20 people died in an explosion at an old army base in Mogadishu, people in the neighbourhood where it occurred are still trying to pick the pieces, a local source told IRIN. The devastation and mutilation has left six people unaccounted for. "We assume they are dead", a humanitarian source said. The explosion, which ripped through makeshift homes at the base on Tuesday, destroyed 22 squatter dwellings. The Mogadishu police chief, Abdi Qeybdid, told IRIN that over 40 people were known to have been injured, but cautioned that others may have fled to the homes of relatives. Qeybdid said the police had now counted 12 unexploded SAM-3 surface-to-air missiles in the former military base. "We have put a fence around it and posted a police guard," he told IRIN. He admitted, however, that given the economic conditions under which the residents of the base were living, it was important to find a way of disposing of the missiles. Most of the residents of the base were poor, displaced people, who "eke out a living by selling copper wire and metal" from the missiles, Qeybdid told IRIN. Loudspeakers had been used to warn people of the danger, but the appeals were unlikely to make a difference, he said. "I'm sure they will try and break open another missile...because a man knows hunger might kill him anyway."