Mogadishu - Ethiopian troops protecting government installations battled with Somali insurgents on Tuesday, scattering dozens of schoolchildren who were caught in the crossfire as they left their classes, witnesses said.
Gunbattles erupted in several locations in the restive capital, Mogadishu, with insurgents using rocket propelled grenades and machine guns during the attacks on an Ethiopian military base and a military convoy.
One Ethiopian military truck with soldiers on board was hit by a rocket and caught fire, said eyewitness Shino Moalin Norow, who sells drinking water near the scene.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Somalia's government and troops from neighbouring Ethiopia drove out a radical Islamic movement late last year, but the government is now struggling with a growing insurgency and the Ethiopians have started pulling out. African Union peacekeepers who began arriving last week have also come under attack. The peacekeepers are the first here in more than a decade.
The peacekeepers, all from Uganda, are the vanguard of a larger force authorised by the United Nations to help the government assert its authority and to allow Ethiopian forces to leave. Insurgents believed to be the remnants of the Council of Islamic Courts have staged almost daily attacks against the government, its armed forces and the Ethiopians.
In Tuesday's violence, teacher Mohamed Hussein Abdi said dozens of his young students fled screaming as fighting broke out close to Hoyga Hamar school.
"We had just finished classes when the fighting broke out," he told The Associated Press. "When the children heard the gunfire they just scattered.
"They were frightened and scattered everywhere. I could not hide myself because I was trying to stop the children running."
The gunmen attacked in minibuses and small cars before fleeing the scene. Ethiopian troops used artillery to return fire, said Abdi.
"Terrorists elements have attacked bases of government troops in the capital," said the Deputy Defence Minister Salad Ali Jelle. "We have repelled them."
However, gunfire could still be heard in the city of 2 million, where escalating violence has forced hundreds to flee.
Meanwhile at least 42 people, mainly children, have died in the last 24 hours from a suspected cholera outbreak in southern Somalia, doctors said on Tuesday.
More than 240 others have been hospitalised, and doctors fear more deaths because of the lack of proper medical facilities or medicines in the war-ravaged country.
Somalia descended into chaos in 1991, when warlords overthrew a dictator, carved the capital into armed, clan-based camps, and left most of the rest of the country ungoverned. The transitional government was formed in 2004 with UN help, but has struggled to assert control. - Sapa-AP