Heavy fighting on Ethiopia-Somalia border kills 12

By AFP

February 18, 2006

MOGADISHU, Somalia – Rival Somali sub-clans battled over pasture and wells just inside Ethiopia leaving at least 12 dead and more than two dozen wounded in a second day of fighting on Thursday as competition for water and pasture heats up in the drought-stricken region, officials said.

The clashes in the Ethiopian village of Yamarug began on Wednesday between heavily armed militia members from the Marehan and Majereteen factions of the larger Darod clan in a dispute over the precious resources, they said.

Yamarug is a remote and desolate outpost in southeastern Ethiopia only about 30 metres from the border with central Somalia and eyewitness accounts of the fighting were sketchy.

At least 12 and as many as 17 people were reported to have been killed, according to officials in nearby towns in Somalia where the wounded from the two factions were brought for treatment.

A nurse at the hospital in Galkayo, where the Majereteen casualties were brought, said the facility was treating 17 injured fighters who spoke of the same number being killed on both sides in the two days of fighting.

“They are saying the same number were killed,” the nurse told Agence France-Presse on condition of anonymity.

In the town of Abudwaq, where the Marehan casualties were brought, a district official said the nine wounded spoke of 12 people being killed although he said the actual number would likely rise.

“The fighting has not stopped and miltiamen from both sides heading to reinforce the area,” the official said.

In the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, an official with the information ministry confirmed the clashes but could not confirm their seriousness or any casualties.

“There were clashes between Somali subclans at the border,” the official said. “We have sent out a fact-finding mission and are waiting for the results of the investigation.”

Tensions between the two factions have run high for some time but they have managed to live together in the Yamarug area for years without violence, according to Somalia observers.

They said those tensions likely erupted into fighting due to the scorching drought that has hit East Africa, threatening more than eight million people with starvation in four countries, including Ethiopia and Somalia.

About 3,4-million people — 1,7-million each in southeast Ethiopia and southern and central Somalia — are at-risk and in need of dire assistance to stave off famine, according to UN agencies.