Mogadishu, Somalia - The United Nations Secretary General's Special Representative for Somalia appealed for a ceasefire on Friday as thousands continue to flee the capital Mogadishu as heavy fighting between rival militias entered its third day, killing about 60 people.

"I urge all sides to consider the loss of life, injuries and other suffering caused to hundreds of families this week and to put aside their weapons," said Francois Lonseny Fall.

Fall urged the warring parties to join talks in the southern town of Baidoa where the fledgling and largely ineffective transitional government is holding its first parliamentary sitting.

The fighting between the militias of a benefactor of the Islamic courts, Abukar Omar Addan, and Bashir Rage Shirar, a member of the Alliance for Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism group, is believed to be over a land dispute.

This fresh outbreak of violence between the two parties follows four days of fighting last month, the worst seen in Mogadishu in recent years.

Many Somalis say that the continuing battle for control of Mogadishu has revealed the increasing influence of the Islamic courts in a city dominated by rival warlords.

The warlords-turned-politicians formed the new alliance, said to be supported by the United States, to curb the growing power of the brutal but efficient courts, currently the only functioning law-enforcement agency in the war-scarred city.

Somalia has been without a central government since 1991 and the country has been carved into competing fiefdoms by rival warlords.