MOGADISHU, Somalia — An artillery shell killed two schoolchildren in the Somali capital on Wednesday during the second day of fighting between African Union peacekeepers and Islamist insurgents, witnesses and officials said. Elsewhere, Islamists seized a key southern town from pro-government forces.
“The shell landed on the school as the students were busy studying. Blood was everywhere. It was shocking,” Mo’alim Mohamed Aden Yusuf, who teaches at the Islamic school near an AU base, said.
In separate fighting, Islamist al-Shabab fighters chased the pro-government militia from Hudur town, 230 miles southwest of the capital.
The pro-government fighters had fled to Hudur after the Islamists chased them from the parliamentary seat of Baidoa last month.
