KISMAYO, Sept 26: Somali Islamists on Tuesday put down a small women’s protest in this key southern port and imposed a curfew after violent demonstrations by residents against their new leaders.

A day after taking Kismayo peacefully but then opening fire on demonstrators, Islamist forces quelled a brief protest by several dozen women and children and slapped a 9pm to 5am curfew, witnesses said.

They moved to break up about 70 women and children who had gathered to chant anti-Islamist slogans and an unknown number of people — by some accounts two, by others as many as 20 — were detained after the demonstration, they said.

“The Islamic courts are occupiers, we don’t want the Islamic courts here, we will not accept the rule of the Islamic courts,” the protestors yelled before being dispersed.

Kismayo police commander Abdullahi Farhan told AFP only about 20 people were chanting and five were now in custody, including two women arrested after Monday’s protest.

At least two people died in Monday’s violence, according to residents, but the Islamists have vehemently denied anyone was killed or wounded, and despite Tuesday’s brief incident and overnight gunfire, the port appeared edgy but calm.

Kismayo residents said they were told the curfew had been imposed to preserve the peace.

“We don’t know how long the curfew will stay in place,” said Kismayo businessman Ahmed Sheilk Abdulle. “If the plan is to avoid violence, we can wait, but everything must have its limits.”

Residents said there were fears the government-allied local Juba Valley Alliance (JVA) militia, which had held Kismayo until Sunday but then fled the Islamist advance, might attempt a counter-strike.

The port is the latest municipality in southern Somalia to fall into Islamist hands since they seized Mogadishu from warlords in June after months of fierce battles.

Islamist officials say they took Kismayo, about 500 kilometers (310 miles) south of the capital and 150 kilometers (90 miles) east of the Kenyan border, to prevent a planned regional east African peacekeeping force from landing there.

But the weak transitional government, which backed the peacekeeping mission, says the move violates an interim peace accord signed earlier this month and accuses the Islamists of fomenting violence and terrorism.

Meanwhile, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said Tuesday that fears of wider unrest have sent the number of people fleeing Somalia soaring to its highest level in a decade and could force ration cuts at refugee camps.

It said increasing tensions had pushed the Somali refugee population in Kenya to 240,000 with another 26,000 expected by the end of the year and appealed for more than eight million dollars (6.3 million euros) in urgent aid to avoid ration cuts.

Already this year, an estimated 24,000 Somalis have been registered at the Dadaab refugee camp complex in northeastern Kenya and with 300 to 400 more arriving each day, WFP said the number of newcomers could reach 50,000.

“The situation is dire,” Marian Ready, the deputy WFP director for Kenya, said in a statement relea-sed in Nairobi. “If war breaks out,

the refugee flows would only esca-late”.

On Monday, Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi appealed for foreign help to prevent further Islamist expansion, saying their alleged links

to terror groups like Al-Qaeda posed

a growing threat to the region and world.

He renewed calls for the deployment of an African Union-endorsed peacekeeping force that the Islamists have vowed to fight if sent.

Despite the fierce Islamist opposition, the seven-member Inter-Govermental Authority on Development (IGAD) has approved plans to send 8,000 peacekeepers to salvage the government it helped create in 2004.

Gedi’s internationally backed but largely powerless administration is the latest in more than a dozen attempts to restore stability to Somalia, which was plunged into anarchy after the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre.—AFP