Somalia ex-president blames govt for Baidoa bloodshed that left 30 dead

MOGADISHU (Somaliguardian) – Somalia’s former President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed on Tuesday placed sole responsibility for the deadly fighting in Baidoa on the federal government of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, arguing that the violence was the direct consequence of a change of power imposed by force in Southwest State this past March.

Sharif, addressing the escalating crisis in the regional capital, described Monday’s clashes as unfortunate and said they represented something that he, fellow opposition figures, and any person of sound conscience could never stop condemning.

The former head of state said his objections to the federal government’s handling of Southwest State were neither new nor selective. He recalled that he had opposed Mogadishu’s move to extend the tenure of regional state leaders, including that of Southwest’s former president, Abdiaziz Laftagaren, and had likewise objected when federal authorities subsequently used force to remove Laftagaren’s administration and install a leadership of their own choosing in the region.

Addressing President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud directly, Sharif appealed for restraint and reconciliation. Whatever has been done, he said, whether right or wrong, the moment has come to return to the table of dialogue before it becomes too late – before the country fragments to a point beyond recovery.

Death Toll and Clashes

The fighting in Baidoa left at least 30 people dead, the overwhelming majority of them combatants drawn from federal government troops on one side and forces loyal to ousted Southwest State leader Abdiaziz Laftagaren on the other. Fighters loyal to Laftagaren briefly seized parts of the town before being driven out in a federal counter-attack on Monday.

Disputed Government Claims

In the aftermath of the clashes, the federal government displayed dead bodies and detainees it said it had captured from forces opposing it, along with what it described as captured military vehicles. Officials characterized those killed and captured as members of Al-Shabaab. However, the government has so far produced no independent evidence to substantiate that claim.

Former local officials in Baidoa who reviewed the images of the dead and detained said they recognized the individuals as fighters belonging to Laftagaren’s Darwish forces, the paramilitary units that had served under his administration, rather than as members of the Al-Qaeda-linked militant group.

The government also presented the burned wreckage of a vehicle, which it said was evidence of a suicide car bombing carried out during the assault. Somali Guardian could not independently verify this claim, and the evidence presented falls short of establishing it conclusively. Separately, media reports circulating in the early hours of Monday’s attack indicated that a federal military base on the outskirts of Baidoa had come under assault, with a number of government vehicles at the site set ablaze during the fighting. This raises the possibility that the charred wreckage displayed by authorities originated from the government’s own vehicles lost in the battle, rather than from a militant-detonated car bomb – a discrepancy that has not been addressed, and no additional physical evidence of a suicide bombing, such as blast-pattern debris consistent with an explosive-laden vehicle, has been produced.

Election Model Under Fire

Sharif also turned his criticism toward the federal government’s approach to regional elections, likening its process to results predetermined and delivered by a single individual rather than shaped through genuine competition – a model, he said, that cannot be accepted.

He pointed to the recent elections held in Southwest State and Galmudug as examples, alleging that authorities had extended patterns of corruption into rural areas, offering individual voters payments of $50 in exchange for their votes. Such a process, he asked, could not reasonably be called an election.

The former president said the essence and beauty of any credible election lies in its being agreeable to all sides and genuinely inclusive. Where those qualities are absent, he said, the exercise cannot be regarded as an election at all. He called on the federal government to reach a negotiated settlement with other political stakeholders over the country’s unresolved electoral disputes.

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