MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Clashes triggered by land disputes and revenge killings between two rival Somali sub-clans have killed at least 10 people, elders said on Sunday.
They said 14 people were wounded in the fighting that started on Wednesday in a remote village called Elmuruq in Somalia's southern lower Shabelle region.
"The latest fighting yesterday killed seven people," Muse Hassan Ali, an elder from one of the sub-clans told Reuters by telephone. "Skirmishes started last Wednesday when three people died. Negotiations are going on."
Somalis are predominantly livestock herders and deadly gunbattles over grazing and water are common among Somalia's myriad clans.
"The place where fighting broke out again yesterday is tense," said Ali Sheikh Yusuf, an elder from the other sub-clan.
Somalia has been without central government since clan warlords toppled dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, carving the Horn of Africa nation into a patchwork of personal fiefdoms.
