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.

Nairobi - Somali gunmen have killed a driver for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the third this year, a spokeswoman for the WFP said Friday.

Hassan Abdi was shot on Thursday while transporting food aid from Mogadishu to provincial areas, the WFP said.

"Somalia is one of the most difficult places for humanitarian agencies to operate, and it appears to be getting more dangerous," Denise Brown, WFP Somalia's deputy country director, said in a statement.

The Horn of Africa nation has been in a state of anarchy since the overthrow of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

Nairobi/Mogadishu  - The leader of a Somali a

Nairobi/Djibouti  - The Somali government and opposition figures have signed an eleventh-hour peace deal aimed at ending 17 years of conflict, but Islamic insurgents at the heart of a recent escalation in violence are not included in the agreement.

The United Nations envoy to Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, who called off the talks in neighbouring Djibouti on Sunday after the opposing factions refused to meet, told the BBC that a deal had been agreed late on Monday night.

"It took eight days to attend workshops, to live in the same hotel, but avoiding each other. Finally they met ... confidence resumed slowly, and we have to support and nurture that renewed confidence," he said.

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.

Berlin  - Sp