{Algeria was mobilising the army on Thursday after 22 people were killed in the worst ethnic clashes between Berbers and Arabs in years, as more details emerged of the violence.}<\/p>\n
The fighting erupted late on Tuesday in the town of Guerara in the M’zab valley, a Unesco world heritage site on the edge of the Sahara that has seen mounting tensions between its Berber and Arab communities.<\/p>\n
An AFP photographer who toured the town on Thursday saw makeshift barricades of tyres and wheelbarrows erected between the rival neighbourhoods and burned out homes, shops and cars.<\/p>\n
After crisis talks on Wednesday, President Abdel Aziz Bouteflika ordered the army to restore order across the province but the AFP photographer saw no troop reinforcements yet deployed in Guerara.<\/p>\n
A Berber leader told AFP that 16 of the dead were from his community and three were Arabs.<\/p>\n
The two communities are divided not only by language but also by religion.<\/p>\n
Hunting rifles<\/p>\n
The Mozabite Berbers are followers of the Ibadi faith, an austere form of Islam that predates the split between Sunnis and Shiites.<\/p>\n
The Chaamba Arabs, like the majority of Algerians, are Sunnis.<\/p>\n
Algerian newspapers gave harrowing accounts of the violence on Thursday, with El Watan daily speaking of “hordes” of masked gunmen who went on a killing and arson spree.<\/p>\n
El Watan said the gunmen rode through town on motorcycles, forcing residents out of homes which they later torched as policemen failed to intervene.<\/p>\n
El Khabar newspaper said masked men carrying hunting rifles opened fire in the streets, drawing out residents they then mowed down.<\/p>\n
There have been on-and-off confrontations between the two communities since December 2013 over property and land ownership after a Berber shrine was vandalised.<\/p>\n
But this week’s violence was the worst so far, prompting President Bouteflika to summon Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal and army chief General Ahmed Gaid Salah for emergency talks.<\/p>\n
Agencies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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