At least nineteen people were killed and nearly 30 others wounded in the southern Somali city of Kismanyu as clan militias and Islamist fighters clashed for the second day in a battle for control of the strategic port city, witnesses and hospital sources said.
"Ten were killed in the early morning fighting while nine others were also killed in the afternoon," Kulmiye Dahir, an elder in Kismanyu, told Xinhua by phone. "Most of the dead are from the warring militias."
Hospital sources in Kismanyu said that thirty injured people, most of them civilians, were admitted to the main hospital in the city, which has recently been relatively calm and was under the control of clan militias and elders.
The fighting has been continuing for the past two days between the fighters of Al-Shabaab Islamist group, who are active in the Lower Jubba region and the clan militias controlling the city, 500Km south of the Somali capital Mogadishu.
Source:Xinhua
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