JALALAQSI, SOMALIA – A town has emptied out, and the state did little to stop it. Clan clashes in Jalalaqsi, in the Hiiraan region, ran into a third day on Saturday. hwo militias traded heavy fire while families fled; homes burned behind them. hhe clan clashes show, once again, how thin state power has grown in central Somalia.
Three Days of Fire
The fighting hollowed out the town. Only armed men stayed behind, according to FTL Somalia. Fighters from both sides torched houses left by the displaced. They said the homes belonged to the rival clan. Videos of the blazes spread online, with gunmen celebrating the wreckage. Earlier in the week, the first clashes had already burned homes and driven families out. The clan clashes then flared again, worse than before.
The response was weak. Former President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed offered condolences and urged calm. The federal government and Hirshabelle authorities also called for peace. Security forces from Hirshabelle and Djiboutian peacekeepers were present in the town. Yet neither force moved to separate the militias. So the clan clashes burned on while officials watched.
There are darker claims too. Residents say the local administration, led by a man known as Nur Dhere, backed one side. If true, the body meant to keep order instead fed the fire. That charge captures the wider rot. In much of Hiiraan, the line between referee and player has blurred. When clan clashes erupt, the people meant to stop them too often take a side.
A Spark and a Vacuum
The trigger was grim. Residents say the trouble began two days earlier, after an allegation that a young woman had been raped. Videos tied to the case spread fast. Anger rose, and the two clans turned to their guns. A single crime became a battle because no trusted authority stepped in. The clan clashes that followed had no brakes.
The trigger also exposes a justice vacuum. A serious crime should bring police, courts, and evidence. In Jalalaqsi, it brought militias instead. With no trusted court to turn to, each clan sought its own revenge. That is how a criminal case becomes a battle line.
The armed presence made the inaction starker. Hirshabelle troops and Djiboutian peacekeepers stood nearby. Their mandate, in theory, includes protecting civilians; in practice, they let the town burn. A force that will not separate two militias offers little comfort to families fleeing past it.
This is not new for the town. Earlier clan clashes in Jalalaqsi broke out after the arrest of a community elder. Two people died then before elders brokered calm. Each round follows the same script. A local dispute flares, the state stands back, and clan militias fill the gap.
The vacuum has a second danger. Al-Shabaab thrives where the state fails; the group watches these feuds and offers its own harsh order in return. So every bout of clan clashes is also an opening for the insurgents who never left the countryside.
Undoing Fragile Gains
Jalalaqsi had been clawing its way back. Forces had pushed al-Shabaab from the area, and life was slowly returning. The electoral commission had even started voter registration there, part of the move toward one-person, one-vote. Aid agencies had begun food deliveries for a district hit by drought and floods.
The fighting threatens all of it. Hiiraan already holds a deep humanitarian crisis, with more than 60,000 people displaced by conflict and insecurity. The new clan clashes add fresh families to that count. Markets close, schools empty, and aid convoys stall. Years of slow recovery can vanish in a weekend of fire.
The lesson is plain. Somalia’s leaders spend their energy on the fight in Mogadishu and the feud with the federal states, a pattern tied to Hassan Sheikh’s constitutional gambit. That drive even produced clan clashes near Dhusamareb. The political fallout reaches the ballot too. The district had begun voter registration for the planned one-person, one-vote system. Fighting and flight now stall that work. So the clan clashes do not just burn homes. They also choke the fragile process meant to give people a say.
The pattern is spreading, not shrinking. Across central Somalia, weak administrations and armed clans keep colliding. Each clash drains the trust a real state needs. Each one leaves a town a little easier for al-Shabaab to claim. Somalia’s map is dotted with such flashpoints, and each is a test the state keeps failing.
Meanwhile, towns like Jalalaqsi burn for want of a fair hand. A state that cannot calm a single district cannot claim to hold the country. The fix is not complicated, only absent: present officials, fair courts, and forces willing to stand between the guns. And al-Shabaab is counting on exactly that.
Nothing since has filled the gap the fighting exposed. Hirshabelle went into July with its own leadership deadlock over House seats, and the electoral commission scheduled the state’s local council and parliamentary vote for 20 August while Galmudug and Banaadir slipped repeatedly. A district that burned in June is therefore heading into an election season with the same absent authority that let the clashes start.
