MOGADISHU (AFP) — Heavy fighting erupted on Tuesday in a densely packed slum area of Somalia's capital, killing several people and sending thousands fleeing as a leading aid agency warned of a humanitarian catastrophe.

By Mustafa Haji Abdinur

MOGADISHU (AFP) — Heavy fighting erupted on Tuesday in a densely packed slum area of Somalia's capital, killing several people and sending thousands fleeing as a leading aid agency warned of a humanitarian catastrophe.

At least five people died, three of them civilians.

Officials and residents said clashes erupted in Dharkinley in southwest Mogadishu early in the morning when Somali loyalist forces attacked checkpoints manned by hardline Islamists in a bid to recapture positions seized earlier.

"The fighting has intensified and spread to several locations in the district. One soldier died as the forces stormed a police station and they killed one militant fighter," a police officer Abdullahi Ahamed said.

A resident, Sufi Nur, said three civilians caught in crossfire died.

"They were killed near the police station," he said.

Medical officials at Medina hospital say they attended to 20 injured.

Terrified residents in the district, largely spared the fighting in recent years, packed whatever they could strap to their backs or load on carts and started flooding out of Dharkinley. Yet others were still trapped by the fighting.

Many headed southwards in the direction of Afgooye, where relief agency Oxfam warned that conditions were not fit for human habitation.

"Heavy clashes erupted near Abagedo area, everybody is fleeing for their lives because they (the fighters) are using heavy machine guns and mortar shells," one resident, Mohamed Ibrahim, said.

Colonel Mohamed Hashi, a senior Somali police officer, confirmed "many people are fleeing the battle zones."

In a report on Tuesday, Oxfam warned that the humanitarian crisis in the war-riven country was reaching catastrophic levels and that it would be more difficult to reach the needy if fighting continued.

"The recent fighting has made the humanitarian crisis in Somalia even worse," said Oxfam's Hassan Noor. "Tens of thousands are on the move, hundreds of thousands are displaced and more than three million are in dire need of aid," he added.

Oxfam says some 70,000 people have been displaced in the weeks of fighting between hardline Islamic radicals and the forces of the shaky Somali government since May 7.

"War, drought and malnutrition are thrusting Somalia towards even greater catastrophe," said Noor.

Dharkinley has been one of the rare calm districts of Mogadishu in recent years during Somalia's successive cycles of violence. Until now, the area has sheltered many displaced from the hotbeds.

"This district has been calm in the past years and hosted many people who also fled other neighbourhoods, but now the time has come for us to flee too," said another resident, Abdi Nure.

The interim Somali government launched a counter-offensive on May 22 to try regain control of swathes of the capital captured earlier by the rebels.

On Tuesday they retook control of Dharkinley police station, a day after they overran another one controlled by insurgents in the north of the city on the Indian Ocean coast.

Mogadishu has been engulfed since May 7 by fierce fighting between the two sides, killing more than 200 people.

The rebel onslaught is led by the Shebab, an extremist faction accused of links to Al-Qaeda; and Hezb al-Islam, a more political radical group loyal to opposition leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys.

They want to topple President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a moderate Islamist who came to power in January under a UN-backed deal and admit receiving foreign support.

Sharif accuses Eritrea of backing the insurgency and the African Union (AU) wants the United Nations to apply sanctions against Asmara.

A 4,300-strong AU peacekeeping force deployed in parts of Mogadishu over the past two years is struggling to contain the violence.

A lawless country of around 10 million, Somalia has had no effective central authority since former president Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991, setting off a bloody cycle of clashes.