MOGADISHU, Jan 6 (AFP) - At least 17 people were killed and 29 wounded in two days of fighting between rival subclans over previous disagreements in Hiindawo village of central Somalia, residents said on Thursday.
"The fighting took place late Wednesday and Thursday and has claimed at least 17 lives, and left 29 others wounded," Hassan Sheikh Nur, a resident, told AFP by radio.
Nur explained the clashes, which pits fighters from Sa'ed and Sulemani subclans of the Hawiye clan, raged despited the presence of a ceasefire agreement.
"Both warring sides are reorganising themselves for more violence," Nur said, adding that about 2,000 villagers have fled to neighbouring and more peaceful areas.
Several other residents of Hiindawo, who witnessed the fighting, said the death toll could be as high as 21.
The latest mayhem is a continuation of long-drawn clashes in Galgudud and Mudug regions of central Somalia.
More than 100 people have been killed since last month, when violence first flared up.
Somalia has lacked an effective central government since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohammed Siad Barre split the vast desert country of some 10 million people into a patchwork of fiefdoms governed by unruly warlords.
Somalia's new leaders, who were sworn into office in Kenya late last year, are still based in Nairobi owing to widespread insecurity in their own country.
The African Union (AU) on Thursday said it had agreed in principle to deploy a peace support mission in the troubled country, which is trying to emerge from 13 years of anarchy.
The mission, whose details of deployment is yet to be agreed, would "both establish the level of security threat and play a role in paving the way for the safe relocation of the transitional institutions, envisaged at the end of January 2005," according to AU.
01/06/2005 16:44 GMT - AFP