HARGEISA (Somaliguardian) – Security forces in the break-away state of Somaliland launched overnight raids on homes and deported hundreds of people in a sweeping crackdown on traders from south Somalia.
Police raided dozens of homes in the town of Lasanod in Sool region on Friday night where families from south Somalia were living and made arrests, after security of the town has deteriorated over the past weeks.
A member of the city’s council was killed weeks earlier in one of the latest attacks staged by unidentified groups, that saw the killing of a number of other regional officials.
Hundreds of men were rounded up at a stadium in the town and were forced to board trucks heading to south Somalia on Saturday. Most of the deportees are said to have come from the regions of Bay and Bakool in the south of the war-torn Horn of Africa nation.
Somaliland has not immediately commented on the move, which comes amid heightened row between the break-away state’s authorities and the federal government over elections held in Mogadishu for representatives from the region who are willing to join the Upper House of Parliament.
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