Wednesday, July 05, 2006
The attack in the town of Dhobley near the lawless nation’s southwestern border with Kenya led to a fierce battle between the gunmen and militia protecting the trucks and appeared to stem from a clan dispute, they said Wednesday.
“Local fighters refused us entry into the town and when we resisted they started fighting,” said Abdullahi Shimbir, a militia commander whose men had been hired to guard the convoy in Somalia’s Lower Juba region.
Dhobley militia commander Ali Baashi Marqaan said two of his fighters and one of the convoy guards were killed and three of his men and one of Shimbir’s were wounded in the exchange of fire.
In the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, WFP spokesman Peter Smerdon confirmed that a convoy of trucks contracted by the agency to transport food in southern Somalia had been fired at in Dhobley but had few details.
“There was an incident,” he told AFP. “There was a shooting but we are investigating and we’re not sure of the casualties.”
Dhobley residents said the dispute that sparked the attack involved competition between businessmen from rival clans who have been vying to win lucrative contracts to protect aid convoys.
Somalia has been in the throes of chaos without any functioning central authority for the past 16 years and insecurity, particularly in rural areas is rampant as rival warlords and clan chiefs fight for territory and influence.
Aid agencies frequently employ freelance gunmen for protection in the Horn of Africa nation of some 10 million people, about two million of whom face chronic and acute food shortages.
Source: AFP, July 5, 2005
