MOGADISHU, July 8 (AFP) – At least four people were killed and six others wounded on Saturday when rival militia clashed in southern Somalia over control of land, elders and witnesses said.
They said the militiamen burnt huts in a village in the southwestern Somali region of Gedo, forcing hundreds of civilians to flee to safer locations within the district of Luuq. “I have seen four dead bodies and six other injured persons,” said an elder reached by radio from the capital Mogadishu. As elders shuttled between rival sides and managed to broker a truce, militiamen repositioned themselves for possible revenge attacks. Inter-clan fighting has flared regularly in the shattered Horn of Africa nation since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled in 1991, an event which split the vast desert country of some 10 million people into a patchwork of fiefdoms governed by unruly warlords. The militia clashes come as the Islamic courts consolidate power in large swathes of southern Somalia, including the lawless capital Mogadishu, after defeating US-backed warlords in four months of clashes that claimed at least 360 people and wounded more than 2,000 others, mostly civilians. The Islamists, who have started entrenching Sharia law, have vowed to restore law and order, while the largely powerless government based in the southcentral town of Baidoa has started setting up local administrations. Source: AFP, July 8, 2006
