AU troops recapture key Somali town

African Union troops have recaptured the crucial town of Afgoye from al Shabaab rebels but thousands of civilians have fled to Mogadishu to escape the fighting.

The United Nations refugee agency said on Friday more than 6, 000 had been displaced by the gun battles at Afgoye.

Kilian Kleinschmidt, deputy humanitarian co-ordinator for Somalia, says there are reports of civilians being wounded.

SOUNDBITE: DEPUTY HUMANITARIAN CO-ORDINATOR FOR SOMALIA, KILIAN KLEINSCHMIDT, SAYING (English):

"We have received or we have heard about other civilians who have been injured by either mortars or stray bullets, but that we cannot verify at this moment, but I have seen one woman."

Aisha Mohamed Adan, a mother of four children, says she was shot in the neck in her own home in a settlement in the Afgoye area.

Salima Hussein Ahmed was found after several days, severely malnourished, in her makeshift shelter and brought to hospital for treatment.

These were the scenes on Wednesday as African Union troops advanced on the town of Afgoye.

It's a strategic junction town on the road from Mogadishu to the south of Somalia about 30 kilometres outside the capital.

Its capture will help secure a corridor to the capital, allowing aid to reach displaced civilians.

The area known as the Afgoye corridor is home to what's believed to be the biggest concentration of internally displaced people in the world.

The AU says securing the corridor would give some 400, 000 people access to aid.

Al Shabaab is behind a bloody five-year insurgency intended to remove Somalia's Western-backed government.

It wants to impose its own interpretation of Islamic, or sharia, law instead.

Paul Chapman, Reuters