Buhoodle, Somaliland, May 22, 2010 — Ethiopian forces clashed Friday with residents of a border town in Somaliland in a rare incursion that left at least 12 civilians dead, officials and witnesses said.

Angry residents violently confronted the Ethiopian forces who had crossed into Buhoodle district of Somalia's northern semi-autonomous region two weeks ago.

"A firefight started this afternoon between the Ethiopian forces and residents in Buhoodle. The information we are getting indicates that 12 civilians were killed and there is still sporadic gunfire in the city," Buhoodle commissioner Osman Yousuf Mohamed told AFP by phone.

"The fighting erupted after the Ethiopian forces seized some public transports vehicles from the city. Many people were angered by the move and they clashed with the Ethiopian troops, stirring heavy fighting," he said, Buhoodle residents told AFP that the Ethiopian forces moved in more troops Friday afternoon after some of their forces were also killed in the clashes.

"More than 10 civilians died and many others were injured. I also saw three Ethiopian troops who were killed in the clashes," said Jama Hussein, a local resident.

"The Ethiopian forces deployed more troops and it looks like they are facing resistance," said another witness, Abdurahman Bare.

The two countries normally have friendly ties, with landlocked Ethiopia providing trade and security assistance to Somaliland in return for using Somaliland's port of Berbera.

Somaliland, which sits on the northwestern part of Somalia, unilaterally broke away from the rest of the Horn of Africa nation in 1991, four months after the overthrow of former Somali dictator Mohamed Siyad Barre.

It has been spared much of the violence that has ravaged rump Somalia, where an Islamist insurgency is battling to overthrow the Western-backed government of President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.

Source: AFP

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