Hiiraan Online
Wednesday October 31, 2018
MOGADISHU (HOL) – The bodies of six people including four from one family have been found outside Somali capital, in a shocking attack in an area which has seen mysterious murder attacks by unidentified gunmen in recent months, officials said on Tuesday.
Police officers located the bodies riddled with bullets dumped along a street in Lafole, a settlement outside Mogadishu after they were kidnapped by armed men who stopped a taxi car in which they were travelling before they were forced out of the car and led to a nearby shrubby area, according Abdifatah Haji Abdulle, the deputy governor of Lower Shabelle region.
The attackers have reportedly spared the victims’ driver unharmed but he is currently under police investigations looking at whether he colluded with the group of attacks or not, officials said.
Four of the victims, reported to be from one family were travelling to the Somali capital from Warmahan, a rural village in the region while the two others were travelling with an elderly ill patient from Afgoye town, 30km north of the Somali capital to a hospital in the city, according to Abdulle.
“The attackers stopped the victims’ car by blocking their way with another car and forced them out of the car before they were murdered.” He said.
The motive behind the gruesome murder by the armed men linked to a local clan remains unclear – however, Mr. Abdulle said he suspects that clan vendetta as the motive behind the murder.
For years, Inter-clan killings, characterized by vendetta slayings have remained prevalent in large parts of Somalia, a problem that has added to the dimension of clannish vendettas.
Despite a significant progress made by the government in prosecuting murder, officials complain that clans in Somalia continue to maintain protection and patronage with impunity in defense for murder suspects, presenting dilemmas to the central government’s efforts to impose law and order into the long-chaotic horn of Africa nation.