At least four civilians were killed and 98 wounded after hours of heavy fighting between government forces and militias in Somalia’s southwestern city of Baidoa, a hospital official said Tuesday. Dozens of combatants also died in the clashes.
The violence began early Monday when militia groups attacked government positions on the city’s outskirts. Baidoa is home to more than half a million people displaced by conflict and drought. Somali officials said at least 30 attackers were killed, but had not released a figure for government casualties.
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Dr. Abdikafi Omar Mohamud, head of the emergencies department at Bay Regional Hospital in Baidoa, said four civilians were confirmed dead and 98 injured. Those wounded included 28 women and an elderly man struck by stray bullets.
The latest clashes further strained medical services already struggling to support residents and displacement camps in Baidoa, located about 245 kilometers (150 miles) northwest of Mogadishu.
Mohamud said his hospital had just 40 beds available when the fighting began and erected an emergency tent to handle the surge of patients. Staff members were also dealing with shortages of essential medicines, he said.
Baidoa was calm on Tuesday, with security forces patrolling main roads and examining buildings and vehicles damaged during the clashes. Residents slowly ventured outside, while troops kept a strong presence in strategic parts of the city.
The fighting started shortly after 5 a.m. Monday, when two explosions struck near a military base east of Baidoa. Minutes later, intense combat erupted around another base in Bonkay, south of the city. Armed fighters then entered Baidoa and exchanged fire with government troops.
For roughly six hours, fighters loyal to former South West state President Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed Laftagareen pushed the new administration’s forces out of parts of Baidoa before government troops forced them to withdraw, said Samira Gaid, a regional security analyst at Balqiis Insights.
Separately, fighters from al-Shabab, the al-Qaida-linked extremist group, attacked two Somali military positions on the outskirts, Gaid said. The simultaneous assaults fueled allegations that al-Shabab had coordinated with Laftagareen’s forces.
Somalia’s federal government said the attackers comprised Laftagareen-aligned militias and al-Shabab fighters. It said its forces killed nearly 30 attackers and captured several more. South West state authorities gave a higher estimate, reporting that about 50 attackers had been killed.
Neither casualty figure could be independently confirmed, and officials offered no explanation for the difference.
South West Internal Security Minister Isak Mohamed Korsaar said Tuesday that government troops had recovered the bodies of al-Shabab fighters and taken others captive.
“The militias that attacked us were not alone,” Korsaar told reporters. “We have confirmed that they were accompanied by al-Shabab.”
The clashes came after months of political tension surrounding South West’s leadership and electoral process. The federal government rejected Laftagareen’s contested indirect re-election in March.
Federal forces seized control of Baidoa on March 30, after which Laftagareen, who had led South West since 2018, announced that he would resign.
Gaid said the fighting highlighted the way political disputes can give extremist groups an opportunity to expand their influence.
“When elite disputes are settled militarily, they create the conditions that the terrorist group exploits,” she said. “It is Somali civilians who pay for it.”
