Mo­gadishu – At least 35 peo­ple, most of them civil­ians, have been killed in a week of clashes in vil­lages near So­ma­li­a’s bor­der with Ethiopia, of­fi­cials and tra­di­tional el­ders said Sun­day.

The sources said the clashes in­volved So­mali clan mili­tia and mem­bers of the Liyu po­lice, an Ethiopian para­mil­i­tary unit op­er­at­ing in Ethiopi­a’s eth­nic So­mali re­gion.

“The Liyu Po­lice Unit launched an at­tack on in­no­cent civil­ians. They are at­tack­ing vil­lagers and killing peo­ple who keep live­stock,” Hus­sein We­he­liye Irfo, the gov­er­nor of the Gal­gadud re­gion in cen­tral So­ma­lia, told re­porters.

He said the So­mali gov­ern­ment was aware of the clashes and also called for the in­ter­ven­tion of Ethiopi­a’s gov­ern­ment and the African Union force in So­ma­lia, AMI­SOM.

Sources in the re­gion said fight­ing started a week ago and es­ca­lated on Fri­day.

“It is ef­fect­ing a vast area and the ca­su­al­ties are very high, 35 dead bod­ies have been counted so far,” Mo­hamed Garane, a tra­di­tional el­der in Guri­cel dis­trict where the wounded are hos­pi­talised, said by tele­phone.

An­other el­der in the re­gion, Daud Moalim Ise, said the Liyu force had used “ex­ces­sive force” and said up to 45 had been killed.

“We have re­ceived around 29 wounded, most of them civil­ians. Many oth­ers are un­able to reach here,” added Ali Omar, di­rec­tor of the main hos­pi­tal in Guri­cel dis­trict. “Among them are women and chil­dren with se­vere gun­shot wounds.”

It was not ap­par­ently clear what sparked the clashes, which are sep­a­rate from on­go­ing bat­tles be­tween African Union troops and Al-Qaeda-linked She­bab in­sur­gents in the far south of the coun­try. Sev­eral sources said the fight­ing may sur­round al­le­ga­tions that a Liyu po­lice mem­ber had raped a lo­cal woman.