Four victims of last week's Somali clan war were evacuated to Nairobi yesterday in critical condition.

Five others are still at Mandera District Hospital with serious gunshot wounds sustained during the fighting in Bulla Hawa town of Gedo, near the Kenya-Somalia boarder.

A one-year-old child and an elderly man were killed in the fighting.

Mr Hassan Mohammed, Mr Hussein Abdullahi, Mr Abdirashid Bargatte and the child's mother, Ms Magala Hamud, were airlifted to Nairobi in an Amref Flying Doctor's aircraft and taken to Kenyatta National Hospital.

Mandera Hospital's medical officer of health, Dr Salat Girad, said the child was strapped on the mother's back when gunmen opened fire.

The mother sustained stomach injuries and a bullet is still lodged in her chest.

Dr Girad said the hospital had stabilised the condition of the patients but the four required special treatment. The five in the hospital have gunshot wounds and bullets lodged in the stomach.

Two of those airlifted to Nairobi were hit in the back of their heads and the bullets exit through the face. One of them had his right eyeball gouged out.

"They only survived because the bullets did not get to the brain," Dr Girad said.

Areas residents said the fighting was spontaneous and not sparked by previous animosity.

"The gunmen arrived in town and begun firing," a witness Mr Ua Yunis told journalists. Following the fighting, hundreds of people had fled the Bulla Hawa region and are camping in Mandera town.

Amref medical director of emergency Dr Bettina Vadera said the free service had been offered after assessing the condition of the patients.

"We should have airlifted them on Monday but the patients had no immigration papers allowing them to be in the country," she told the Nation.