The violent conflict between Ethiopian troops and Islamist fighters trying to bring down Somalia’s government killed 81 people over the weekend and wounded 119. Most of them were civilians. After the bloody attack, hundreds of residents evacuated the area, abandoned their homes trying to escape Mogadishu. Others removed corpses from the street. An Associated Press reporter said he saw at least 10 bodies that were being removed from the street around a mosque.

“Ethiopian tanks are still stationed inside our neighborhoods and the insurgents are likely to launch counterattacks, so we are leaving for our own safety,” said Faduma Ahmed, who was abandoning her home with six children and her brother, according to the International Herald Tribune.

"We have left our homes for the first time in days to find the dead bodies of our neighbors and bury them," said Aden Haji Yusuf, 60, one of Somalia’s clan leaders, according to the same source.

Ethiopians troops invaded Somalia in December 2006 with the mission to install the U.N.-backed transitional government. Back then the conflict broke out between an alliance of Mogadishu warlords called the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism and a militia loyal to the Islamic Courts Union, which was trying to institute Sharia law in Somalia. The Islamic Courts Union accused the U.S. of funding the warlords and supplying them with arms. There were rumors that he U.S. believed that the Union was harboring individuals suspected to be involved in Al Qaeda plans.

Seriously affected by the civil war and the Ethiopian invasion, Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991.