MOGADISHU, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- A burst of gunfire which was heard on Friday in the war-ravaged Somali capital of Mogadishu made common Somalis feel uncertain about their future. Somalia, the Horn of Africa nation, has been plagued by civil strife since the overthrow of military strongman Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. Islamist rebels run much of south and center of Somalia while the Somali government control small parts of the restive capital Mogadishu.

Thirty-six-year-old Yusurf Abdi, a former taxi driver, told Xinhua journalists that the gunfire everyday made him extremely uncertain about the future. He said the bombings and gun shots just made him feel very insecure.

His son, 12-year-old Ali, is so thin that he looks more like a boy eight or nine years old. The boy is of school age, but because of the long-lasting conflicts here, he never had the chance for education and could not speak English.

Currently, the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) is backing the country's transitional government to keep order. The AMISOM troops are backing the transitional government to keep the nation's institutions functional, and control strategic sites in the capital Mogadishu, such as the airport, sea ports and government buildings.

The AU had initially announced to send 8,000 soldiers for the Somalia mission, but currently there are only less than 5,000 troops mainly contributed by Uganda and Burundi.

The peacekeepers have struggled to make an impact in Somalia, while at the same time they are targeted by Islamist insurgents seeking to regain power from the government forces.

Apart form their peacekeeping tasks, the troops are also offering humanitarian assistance to the residents living nearby their bases.

"We also give water, portable water of about 60,000 litters everyday to those who live within the neighborhood of our camps. So, those are some of the humanitarian activities we are involved in", Maj. Barigye Ba-Hoku, AMISOM's public information officer told Xinhua.

However, as fighting occur on a daily basis here, the peacekeepers themselves are targets of the militants.

On Sept. 17 last year, a suicide bomb attack by Islamist rebels on the headquarters of AU forces in Mogadishu left 17 peacekeepers dead while 29 others were wounded. AMISOM deputy commander Maj. Gen. Juvenal Niyonguruza, from Burundi, was among those killed while former AMISOM commander Gen. Nathan Mugisha, from Uganda, was wounded in the blast.

Unlike many of the Mogadishu residents, Abdi does not choose to flee the restive capital. He said the fact that his family lived close to the AMISOM base gave him some sense of security. However, he added he did hope the conflicts could end some day and his family could really live a safe life.