MOGADISHU (AFP) — At least nine people were killed and 18 wounded in
central Somalia when two clans fought Monday over land, hospital and
local officials said.The fighting erupted between the Sa'ad and
Dir sub-clans over disputed land in Galkaio town in central Somalia,
said Bile Mohamud Qabowsade, a government official from Puntland,
Somalia's northern breakaway region.
"We received five bodies and
10 wounded (people)," said Feisal Ise Qondhe, a medical official in a
hospital north of Galkaio, adding that four other bodies and eight
wounded people were taken to a nearby hospital.
Qabowsade said government forces had been sent to the area and the feuding clans had been urged to reach a ceasefire.
Meanwhile
in the Somali capital Mogadishu, Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein
reiterated his call to government opponents, notably the Islamist
militia, for dialogue to end years of turmoil in the Horn of Africa
country.
"No group will be denied the right to negociate peace,"
Hussein told a press conference. "We will talk to everybody regardless
of their political affiliations."
"The shababs (Islamist militia)
are part of the Somali people and the government will talk to them in
order to end the cycle of violence," he added.
Several bids to
end the Somali violence that erupted after the 1991 ouster of dictator
Mohamed Siad Bare have failed to restore stability.
SOURCE: AFP, March 17, 2008