MOGADISHU, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- The Somali capital of Mogadishu was shadowed by more gunshots on Friday as Xinhua correspondents joined the patrolling team of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).

Wearing a 7.5 kg bulletproof jacket, 2.5 kg helmet each and carrying heavy machineguns, the African Union (AU) peacekeepers began their routine patrol on Friday morning in downtown Mogadishu. The dress and accessories will make people dizzy in the scorchy weather of about 38 degrees Celsius, but can save lives.

Under tight protection of the AU peacekeepers, Xinhua correspondents jointed the patrolling team in an armed vehicle. Sporadic gunshots erupted nearby, interrupted sometimes by roaring of shells. "Take it easy. It's normal. They (insurgents) want us know they are existent," said the team commander.

But he flatly rejected the request of the correspondents to make one-minute video record from the top of the vehicle.

"Can you member that words? Do not ignite three matches in the same place, the first you will be found, the second will be targeted, the third, you will die," the commander warned.

Intensive gunshots were heard almost every two hours, most of which focused on the surrounding areas of the AMISOM barracks, as a protest signal of the rebels against the AU peacekeeping forces.

"It is a little special today," said the commander, pointing out that there were more gunshots today than it used to be. "Maybe they know you are here."

Civilians have also become victims in the assaults of insurgents.

"My brother was shot just now," said a boy in the AU barrack.

His brother, a 10-year-old boy named Ali, was shot in the right leg by the intensive gunshots fired just now and sent to the AU barrack for treatment. With blood leaking from bandage, Ali suffered with pain.

Maj. Barigye Ba-Hoku, AMISOM public information officer, told Xinhua that the armed group claimed they are targeting at the AMISOM or the Somali transitional government. "But the majority of the people who get injured or killed in those attacks are ordinary Somalis. They are civilians. At the end of the day when you count the casualties, they are neither Ugandan nor Burundi people, but Somalis. Somalia is losing its citizens."

"All the targets are the AMISOM and the government, but you can see the result: more and more Somalia people died, they come from the sub-clan, the same sub-family," Ba-Hoku said.

That is the reality of Somalia which has been plagued by civil strife since the overthrow of military strongman Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. About 1.3 million people have been displaced by the conflicts in the past two decades. Mogadishu has almost been mired in debris.

Uganda and Burundi are currently the only countries contributing troops to the African Union's peacekeeping mission in Somalia.

"I hope it will be finish soon and I can go back," peacekeeper Owani Kenneth from Uganda told Xinhua frankly. To put an end to all these have become a wish of all.