Federal troops and militia clash in Baidoa, sparking civilian casualties amid humanitarian crisis

On Monday, heavy combat broke out in the centre of Baidoa, the administrative capital of Somalia's South West state, as militias linked to the former regional president entered from two sides and engaged two federal army battalions. Federal forces, who have held the city since March, responded with heavy weapons, and a shopkeeper reported at least two civilians killed by stray gunfire and several injured patients being taken to hospitals.

The clash endangers a metropolis of over a million residents that hosts international peacekeepers, humanitarian organisations and hundreds of thousands of displaced persons, where a recent survey found one in four children severely malnourished. After the federal takeover, South West state leader Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed Laftagareen resigned, and his spokesperson Hassan Mohamed claimed the militias had captured Baidoa and urged federal troops to surrender, a claim that could not be independently verified. Captain Osman Abdullahi, a federal officer, said the militias attacked early morning and that forces were pushing them back amid the civilian casualties.