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Fighting resumes in Baidoa

    NAIROBI

    Fighting again broke out in the southern town of Baidoa on Tuesday after a lull on Monday, local sources told IRIN.

    Monday was quiet after fighting over the weekend between factions of the Rahanweyn Resistance Army (RRA). It is not clear who started the latest round of fighting. "It looks like they used Monday to regroup and mobilise reinforcements," the sources said.

    The fighting is still continuing "with people trying to get to safety", they added.

    Meanwhile, elders mediating in the ongoing conflict have recommended the dissolution of the recently established self-declared autonomous Southwest State of Somalia (SWS), a member of the mediating committee told IRIN.

    Ali Margus, a prominent businessman and senior member of the mediation committee, said the committee had reached this decision because "the establishment of the SWS was at the heart of the current fighting".

    The RRA, which controls the Bay and Bakol regions in southwestern Somalia, established the SWS in late March, with the RRA chairman, Col Hasan Muhammad Nur Shatigadud, as president of the new regional administration.

    However the decision was not popular with everyone and served to create divisions within the RRA's top leadership. This led to a deepening split between Shatigadud and his two deputies, Shaykh Adan Madobe and Muhammad Ibrahim Habsade, which eventually resulted in the current factional fighting in Baidoa.

    Both Madobe and Habsade were unhappy with the formation of the SWS, since they felt it had sidelined them. According to local sources, both felt that by establishing the SWS, Shatigadud had politically sidelined them, and concentrated "all the power in his hands".

    The mediation committee also agreed that the RRA would be the "only legitimate entity in the region" and Shatigadud would remain as its chairman, while Madobe and Habsade would stay on as deputies, Margus told IRIN.

    He said a senior elders' council would be established to "supervise and oversee" the work of the RRA executive committee, which would be expanded "to bring in those sectors of the Rahanweyn which were not represented".

    "All RRA militias will be put under one command, which will come under the elders' control," he added.

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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