More than 1,000 people have been killed in recent clashes in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, according to elders from the city's main clan.

Hawiye clan spokesman Hussein Aden Korgab also said more than 4,000 had been injured in some of the heaviest fighting in 15 years.

The clashes came as the government and Ethiopian soldiers battled insurgents - both Islamists and Hawiye fighters.

The United Nations refugee agency says some 124,000 people have fled the city.

Somalia has not had an effective national government for 16 years.

The transitional government has set up in the capital this year after Ethiopia helped it oust Islamists who took control of much of southern Somalia in June 2006.

PHOTO CAPTION

Members of the Somali Red Crescent bury bodies of Somalis in a mass grave in Mogadishu, Friday, April 6, 2007, who were among people killed in Mogadishu, Somalia fighting. (AP)