30 die in Somali violence
2005-10-07 19:12
Mogadishu - At least 30 people have died in nine days of fighting for grazing land in southern Somalia, say witnesses and officials on Friday.
Witnesses said 10 people, including four children, died late on Thursday in the fighting, which had pitted clan-based militias against each other in Heejow Mahaad, 200km southwest of Mogadishu.
They asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation from the militias.
The fighting started on September 29 after local farmers and pastoralists clashed or a plot of land. Regional leader Sheikh Yusuf Mohamed Siyad Indha-ade and clan elders had appealed to both sides to stop fighting and begin peace talks.
Rocket-propelled grenades
Hundreds of people had fled their homes in the area to avoid getting caught in the crossfire.
The fighters were using heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades that could easily tear through most Somali homes.
Farah Osman Yabar, a 76-year-old farmer, said the farmers had lived and farmed the area for years.
He said: "Clashes have periodically flared up between the two groups as migrating pastoralists in search of water during the dry season would graze on farmers land."
'It's the gun that counts'
Yabar said tribal leaders would settle disputes over lost crops in the past, with the nomadic people reimbursing the farmers.
But, now he said the disputes turn violent because "it's the gun that counts".
Somalia descended into lawlessness after clan-based warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and turned on each other.
A transitional government formed in late 2004 after lengthy peace talks in Kenya raised some hope for the Horn of Africa country of seven million, but its members had been fighting among themselves in recent months.
- AP