Mogadishu  - Six children living in makeshift camps around the Somali capital of Mogadishu have died in flooding brought on by torrential rain over the weekend, residents said Monday.

Hundreds of thousands have fled Mogadishu to escape heavy fighting between transitional government forces and Islamic insurgents, with many of them setting up camp wherever they can.

"Four children died in our camp - all the people live here in makeshift tents that could not stop the rain," Dahabo Hussein, a mother of four, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

"The children do not have the resistance to tolerate hypothermia in these conditions," she added.

Mogadishu  - A senior advisor to Somalia's parliamentary speaker has been killed in a confrontation between the speaker's bodyguards and Islamic insurgents, residents said Monday.

Nairobi/Mogadishu - On a beach in Bosaso, North-East Somalia, near the tip of the Horn of Africa, dozens of Somali and Ethiopian refugees perch on rocks or squat in the sand, peering across the Gu

Mogadishu  - At least four African Union peacekeepers were seriously injured and possibly killed in Mogadishu Friday when a roadside bomb blew up the truck they were travelling in, witnesses said.

"It was huge blast. The truck was totally destroyed - it was scattered into pieces," Ibrahim Dahir Salad, a tailor who witnessed the incident, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Salad said he saw four soldiers being carried away from the convoy, which was comprised of mainly Ugandan soldiers.

AU spokesman Major Bariyge Bahuko would only confirm the attack took place, saying that further details would be released at a Saturday press conference.

Mogadishu  - Gunmen kidnapped two Italian aid workers and their Somali colleague in the the Lower Shabelle region of Somalia early Wednesday, local officials said.

Mogadishu - Five soldiers died and several others were in