Hundreds fled Mogadishu as warring sides clashed for a third day Friday, wounding at least 19 and flattening homes in the violence-wracked Somali capital, witnesses and medical sources said. African Union-backed government forces and Islamist insurgents exchanged artillery fire in a southern neighbourhood, sparking the exodus. "Hundreds of families are fleeing the city today as clashes between Somali government ...

The African Union's commissioner for peace and security on Thursday commended Guinea on "very positive" progress towards constitutional order and elections following a military coup. "Things are going very positively," Commissioner Ramtane Lamamra told AFP after a meeting of the AU Peace and Security Council at AU headquarters in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. "The prime minister of the ...

The African Union wants Niger's military junta to free President Mamadou Tandja, overthrown in a February 18 coup, the body's peace and security chief Ramtane Lamamra said Thursday. "It's a constant source of preoccupation for the AU... it's both a moral and a political obligation," Lamamra said after an AU Peace and Security Council meeting. "We ...