By Guled Mohamed

MOGADISHU, May 8 (Reuters) - The U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday it had carried out its first aid distributions in Mogadishu since Somalia's capital was blasted by the heaviest fighting for 16 years.

Some 1,300 people died and hundreds of thousands more fled battles last month between insurgents and allied Somali-Ethiopian forces who attacked each other for more than a week with machineguns, artillery and rockets.

"We started in the heaviest damaged areas in north Mogadishu, where the fighting was concentrated," WFP country director Peter Goossens said in a statement.

"But we are also reaching many of those who are still outside Mogadishu and are too frightened to return, but are struggling in terrible conditions under trees in the rain."

Some 16,000 residents received handouts, WFP said, adding that by the end of the week it hoped to have reached 114,000 in and around the shell-scarred coastal city since April 27.

Urgent aid operations continued to be expanded, it said, "given the prevailing security situation". It said it planned to deliver 5 tonnes of food on Tuesday to Mogadishu hospitals.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says its has treated some 3,000 "weapon-wounded" Somalis so far this year, but that this was only a fraction of the injured. Most could not venture out to seek help because of the fighting.

Aid workers had thought 2006 was a terrible year in Somalia, said Red Cross spokesman Pascal Hundt, as the nation was ravaged by the worst droughts and floods in more than a decade.

"But this year Mogadishu has gone from blitzkrieg to insurgency, killing hundreds, and on top of that their has been a cholera epidemic," Hundt told a news conference in Nairobi. "The people we help are so exhausted by insecurity and hunger."

The relief agency appealed for $15.4 million to boost its work in the Horn of Africa nation, where it is also providing drinking water, shelter and medicines to those who have fled Mogadishu, many sheltering in the open in surrounding districts.

There has been relative calm in the capital since the interim government, which is backed by Ethiopia and the United States, declared victory over the rebels more than a week ago.

The insurgency began after the government and its Ethiopian military allies defeated Islamist fighters in a lightning offensive at the end of last year. (Additional reporting by Jeremy Clarke in Nairobi and Richard Waddington in Geneva)

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