Situation in Mogadishu improving after weeks of insecurity

The Mogadishu police have admitted there has been serious insecurity in Mogadishu for the past three weeks, but said the situation is now improving. Mogadishu police chief Abdi Hasan Awale Qeybdid told IRIN on Wednesday that restructuring and reorganisation had been going on within the force, and it was now ready to carry out its tasks. "I now have at my disposal over 3,000 officers to fight the crime wave," he said. He said the police had on Wednesday "recovered four stolen vehicles, killed two car-jackers, wounded one and arrested two". He vowed that the police would defeat the criminals, but added that "we need the support of the residents morally and materially". Maryan Husayn Awreye of the Mogadishu-based Isma'il Jim'ale Human Rights Centre told IRIN that there had been an increase in "robberies, car-jackings and general banditry" in the city over the last three weeks. "In the Monopolio market in north Mogadishu, business came to a standstill because of insecurity," she said. As a result of the police clean-up operation, businesses were slowly starting to operate again in the market. She said the worst-affected area of Mogadishu was the southwestern Madina district, where factional fighting broke out last month. Heavy fighting erupted in Madina on 27 December, leaving dozens of people dead or wounded, local sources told IRIN at the time. The fighting occurred between militia loyal to the Mogadishu faction leader, Muse Sudi Yalahow, and supporters of his former right-hand man and deputy, Umar Mahmud Muhammad Finish. Both Yalahow and Finish belong to the Da'ud subclan of the Abgal clan. The fighting led to widespread looting and the rapes of nine women, one of whom - eight months' pregnant - died, Maryan said. "It was a hellish three weeks in Mogadishu, especially for women," she added. Another of the rape victims had been a 12 year-old girl. However, she said the situation had been improving over the last couple of days, with the police engaging the bandits and succeeding in cleaning up the Monopolio market. "Today the police are operating in Bakara market, the Black Sea area, in south Mogadishu, and Monopolio market," she said.