Fighting in Baidoa has ended with Somalia’s federal government back in control of the city. Troops repelled an assault by fighters loyal to former Southwest State president Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed Laftagareen. The clashes were among the fiercest seen in the region in months.
The fighting in Baidoa broke out before dawn on Monday. Gunmen using vehicles packed with explosives struck federal positions on the edge of the city, Somalia’s defence ministry said. Troops eventually drove the attackers back. The ministry said around thirty fighters were killed in the operation, though that figure has not been verified independently.
Residents said the fighting in Baidoa was the fiercest since March. That was when federal forces first seized the city after Laftagareen’s regional administration announced it was cutting ties with Mogadishu. He resigned from office soon afterwards. He has remained a vocal opponent of the federal government ever since.
Reuters reported that militias loyal to the ousted leader pushed into Baidoa from two directions on Monday morning. They confronted two battalions of federal troops stationed in the city. A local shopkeeper told the news agency the fighting in Baidoa had intensified through the morning. Federal forces relied on heavy weapons to hold their ground.
Stray bullets tore through homes as the battle spread into residential streets. At least two civilians were reportedly killed inside their houses. Several other wounded residents were rushed to hospital. A local elder, Farah Ibrahim, said he counted ten bodies once the shooting eased. Among them were four civilians and six fighters from both sides.
Accounts of who actually controlled the city during the fighting in Baidoa varied through the day. Laftagareen’s spokesman, Hassan Mohamed, claimed early on that loyalist fighters had captured the city centre. He urged federal soldiers to surrender. That claim could not be confirmed. By evening, residents told Reuters that federal troops had pushed the opposition fighters out of town entirely.
Baidoa sits at the centre of a wider standoff between Mogadishu and Somalia’s federal member states. Regional authorities, including the administration Laftagareen once led, accuse the federal government of overriding local control of state elections. They also object to constitutional changes that concentrate power in the presidency. That dispute has hardened into a lingering insurgency, running alongside the federal government’s separate war against al Shabaab militants.
The renewed fighting in Baidoa threatens to worsen an already dire humanitarian situation. The city shelters hundreds of thousands of people displaced by conflict and drought elsewhere in Somalia. A July survey by Medecins Sans Frontieres found that one in four children in Baidoa’s displacement camps was severely malnourished. That underlines how precarious life already was before Monday’s violence.
Military control after the fighting in Baidoa does not settle the underlying political dispute. Laftagareen’s camp continues to dispute the legitimacy of his removal from office. Tensions remain raw five months on. Further flare ups in Baidoa cannot be ruled out.
Calm has returned to the city centre for now. Residents say the sound of gunfire earlier in the day left many too frightened to leave their homes. Aid workers based in Baidoa are expected to assess whether Monday’s fighting disrupted humanitarian operations. Hundreds of thousands of displaced people rely on those operations daily.
