MOGADISHU, June 2 (Reuters) The death toll from clashes between rival Somali militia rose to 53 today, with more than 60 wounded in fighting in the Horn of Africa country, medical sources said.
More than 200 families were evacuated from the southwestern town of Bulo Hawo, bordering Kenya, when fighting began yesterday morning between militia loyal to Mohamud Sayid Aden and those belonging to his former ally Yusuf Cante.
Yesterday witnesses reported 25 people had been killed. By today that toll had more than doubled, to 53.
It was the latest violence in the anarchic country which disintegrated into a patchwork of competing fiefdoms run by rival warlords after the overthrow of military ruler Mohammed Siad Barre in 1991.
Many Bulo Hawo residents escaped to Mandera on the Kenya side of the border, where police confiscated AK-47 assault rifles from fleeing clansmen.
Fighting around a port near Mogadishu and in southern Somalia has killed more than 100 people in the past three weeks.
Officials in the port town of Kismayo said militia had released a vessel they captured six days ago, which was owned by a United Arab Emirates businessman.