26/03/2005 19:03
Mogadishu - At least five people were killed on Saturday in fierce inter-clan fighting in the southern Somali town of Baidoa, witnesses and a militia commander said.
"The fighting was very heavy and the death toll could be higher because the warring sides were using battlewagons, rocket propelled grenades and small firearms indiscriminately," said Baidoa businessman Ahmed Mohammed Barkat.
He said fighting between militias using battlewagons - the Somali term for a machine-gun mounted on a small truck - was continuing.
Witnesses said the fighting involved gunmen loyal to Colonel Hassan Mohammed Shati Gudud and those of Mohammed Ibrahim Habsadi, both of whom are members of Somalia's transitional parliament.
Militia commanders loyal to Habsadai accused Shati Gudud of starting the fighting while those allied with Shati Gududu faulted Habsadai for destabilising Baidoa over the past three weeks.
Somalia's parliament is currently in crisis over plans to relocate the country's government-in-exile from Kenya to the towns of Baidoa and Jowhar instead of the capital Mogadishu.
On Thursday in Baidoa, some 250km west of Mogadishu, militiamen in the area fired shots in the air to break up a crowd of demonstrators backing the government's proposal to move to Baidoa and Jowhar.
The Horn of Africa country has been in chaos without any functioning central authority since the ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 turned the nation into a patchwork of fiefdoms ruled by warlords.
Edited by trs