An AFP correspondent saw droves of residents leaving the capital with their belongings, two days before a clan reconciliation meeting sponsored by the transitional government but boycotted by insurgents was due to kick off.

"We don't want to die pointlessly in Mogadishu," said Abdi Warsame.

The father of three said he worked as a sugar trader on Bakara market, which was bombed half a dozen times this week alone.

"We see people dying for no reason in daily explosions, so I have decided to flee for a safer place," he said.

"Insurgents are firing mortars and planting mines ... I think we must flee, otherwise we could be victims caught by stray mortars," said Haji Ali Nur Madobe, driving a pickup truck in which he had crammed his wife and children.

"I don't think peace can be achieved as long as the government wants to host a congress while others are disrupting it by firing mortars," he added.

Somali government forces backed by Ethiopian troops and the Ugandan contingent of the African Union peacekeeping force have beefed up their efforts to secure the capital ahead of the much-delayed talks.

Yet Islamist insurgents and clan leaders opposed to the Ethiopia-backed government have carried out daily guerrilla attacks in recent weeks.

Late Wednesday, they fired mortars in an area housing the site of the conference as well as the presidential palace.

The during heavy-handed police actions in reprisal, several civilians were killed.

The exodus that drained the war-ravaged city since last year had experienced a lull since the Ethiopian-backed Somali government forces wrested final control of the city from Islamist rebels in April.

But a campaign of hit-and-run gun and grenade attacks as well as roadside bomb blasts has continued to destabilise Mogadishu, prompting many residents to flee.

"In the months of June and July... almost 7,000 people have fled the ongoing insecurity and sporadic violence in Mogadishu," said the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in a statement.

The government's main adversaries are boycotting the conference, demanding that peace talks be held outside of Somalia and only after an Ethiopian pullback.

Threats to disrupt the talks have been circulating on the Internet and while police has strived to clean up the vicinity of the venue, observers believe the conference is still vulnerable to mortars and suicide attacks.

"I believe there will be attacks against the premises of the reconciliation conference and the government forces can respond with heavy artillery," said Safiyo Abdullahi Mohieddin, a mother of three, walking behind a donkey cart packed with her belongings.

She said she hoped to catch a bus and join her husband and children in central Somalia.