- Title: [SW News](AFP English Wire) - Southern Somali faction tells
rival to get out or face violence
- From:[]
- Date :[Wednesday March 8, 2000 , 10:01 GMT]
| Southern Somali faction tells rival to get out or face
violence Agence France Presse English Wire , Wednesday , March 8, 2000 ,
10:01 GMT MOGADISHU, March 8 (AFP) -- A Somali armed faction has told members of a rival
clan to quit the country's southern Lower Shabelle region or face action that will
"cost them more lives", aspokesman for the group said Wednesday. "If the
Habr Gedir militiamen and all their clansmen do not leave the area taking all their
belongings to Mogadishu or elsewhere in Somalia, they might face a humiliating defeat
which could cost themmore lives," Asad Mohamed Abdi, spokesman for the Digil
Salvation Army (DSA) told AFP in Mogadishu. Abdi also urged humanitarian agencies
intending to send aid workers to Lower Shabelle to take precautions because the security
situation there was volatile. Leaflets have circulated in the towns of Janale, Qoryoley
and Kurtunwarey since the weekend warning that violence would be used to evict members of
the Habr Gedirclan from Lower Shabelle if they did not leave voluntarily. Many members of
theHabr Gedir clan, who mainly reside in central Somalia, settled in the fertile
banana-producing Lower Shabelle following the collapse of the government of dictator
Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. Lower Shabelle's main inhabitants are the Bantu,Dir, Hawiye
clans and some Digil subclans. Rivalries engendered by land ownership issues are believed
to be the cause of escalating violence in the area. At least 22 people were killed in
factional fighting in the town of Qoryoley at the weekend. Meanwhile, the Ayamaha
newspaper reported Wednesday that more Ethiopian troops had arrived in the south-central
town Baidoa. The Ethiopians, who have backed the Rahanwein Resistance Army (RRA) faction
and the DSA in their campaign against militiamen loyal to south Mogadishu warlord Hussein
Aidid during the pastfour years, arrived on Tuesday and were backed by tanks and other
armoured vehicles. str-amu/jnm/nb Copyright © 2000 Agence France Presse. All rights
reserved |
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