MOGADISHU (AFP) - Rival sub-clans fought over access to coal in Northern Somalia, killing an estimated 40 people and wounding several others on Tuesday, elders said, as Puntland sank into a vortex of violence.
Also Tuesday, two people were killed and four others wounded in the capital Mogadishu in a fresh spate of insurgent attacks against government targets, they said.
The pitched battles between allied Isa Mahmud and Dulbahante sub-clans, who have previously clashed over pasture land and water, cooperated in an attack against the Warsangeli clan, in Sanaag region, that has recently split from Puntland State.
"More than 30 people were killed between towns and villages in LasQoray and Ceerigabo," Walleed Abdikariim, an elder, told AFP.
Although it was not clear if the fatalities were civilians or fighters, Abdikariim warned of reprisals if elders fail to broker an armistice in the newly volatile Northern region.
Several elders confirmed the fatalities from the latest fighting that has no links with the Maakhir rebellion against Puntland State, mainly in Eastern Sanaag.
Witnesses said several wounded were treated in hospitals in Sanaag's largest city, Ceerigabo, West of LasQoray.
"I saw many people being taken to Ceerigabo for treatment. They said many others were lying dead in the villages," said LasQoray resident Aden Sharmarke.
The feuding sub-clans, which belong to the Somali dominant Darood clan, have not clashed like this since before the federal era, part of a deep-rooted rivalry that turned more bloody when fighters accessed modern weaponry after the civil war.
Bitter clan grudges and endless squabbling over coal and grasslands over during the dry season when pastoralists scramble for resources in the country's dustbowl plains, where camels, goats, sheep and cattle are key to their livelihood.
The government's fixation on Mogadishu, the epicentre of Somali unrest, has left much of the North under the control of clan elders, whose influence is waning owing to changing dynamics of the conflict.
Source: AFP
(U know why !)
