Gunmen exhume remains from Italian cemetery in Somalia

MOGADISHU (AFP) - Gunmen under orders from Islamic clerics have exhumed and discarded the remains of more than 500 people buried in an Italian cemetery in Somalia's bullet-scarred capital, residents said Wednesday.

The gunmen, who started digging at the cemetery in the Suka Hola neighbourhood in south Mogadishu overnight, threw the remains into a garbage-dumping zone along the city's southern Indian Ocean shore, they said.

Residents said most of the remains belonged to Italian nationals - soldiers, traders and missionaries - who lived, died and were buried in Mogadishu early in the 20th century when southern Somalia was a protectorate of Italy.

The exhumation is believed to be the first of its kind since Somali independence in 1960, residents said. After World War II Somalia was a UN trust territory administered by Italy until independence.

Witnesses reported the gunmen had told them they had been ordered by a religious court to clear the site of non-Islamic elements and to make way for housing to be built on the grounds.