Opposition fighters withdrew from the Somali capital on Friday, ending a tense standoff with pro-government troops after a dispute over delayed elections triggered the country’s worst political violence in years.

Hundreds of heavily-armed gunmen pulled out of strongholds in Mogadishu they had occupied since late April, when a long-running political crisis turned deadly with clashes erupting between rival factions of the security forces.

Under a deal reached by the warring sides this week, opposition troops began leaving their positions in the capital, and key roads sealed off with sandbags and machine guns were opened once more.

“We are sending our forces back to the frontline position to defend the country and its people,” said Mahad Salad, an opposition lawmaker, at a camp outside Mogadishu where troops assembled after pulling out of the city.

Mogadishu had been on edge since February, when President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed’s term ended before elections were held, and protesters took to the streets against his rule.

But a resolution in April to extend his mandate by two years split the country’s fragile security forces along all-important clan lines.

Soldiers loyal to influential opposition leaders began pouring into the capital, where clashes broke out with pro-government troops, killing three.

• Exodus –

The fighting drove tens of thousands of civilians from their homes and divided the city, with government forces losing some key neighbourhoods to opposition units.

Under pressure to ease the tension, Mohamed abandoned his mandate extension and instructed his prime minister to arrange fresh elections and bring together rivals for talks.

“These forces came to the rescue of the people, and have taught a new lesson which will be remembered in future. They refused a dictatorship, and have forced the democratic governance process to continue,” opposition lawmaker Salad said.

Indirect elections were supposed to have been held by February under a deal reached between the government and Somalia’s five regional states the previous September.

But that agreement collapsed as the president and the leaders of two states, Puntland and Jubaland, squabbled over the terms.

Months of UN-backed talks failed to broker consensus between the feuding sides.

In early May, Mohamed relaunched talks with his opponents over the holding of fresh elections, and agreed to return to the terms of the September accord.

Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble has invited the regional leaders to a round of negotiations on May 20 in the hope of resolving the protracted feud and charting a path to a vote.

The international community has threatened sanctions if elections are not held soon, and warned the political infighting distracted from the fight against Al-Shabaab, the militants who control swathes of countryside.

Major General Ali Araye Osoble told opposition troops outside the capital that it was time to return to duty.

“I order that you return to your positions and fulfil your commitments in the fight against Al-Shabab,” the opposition commander said.

Over 17,500 people have fled their homes in jihadist-hit Burkina Faso in the last 10 days after attacks that claimed at least 45 lives, the United Nations said Friday.

More than 1,300 people have been killed and one million have fled violence since 2015, when jihadists emerged in the formerly tranquil West African nation.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees expressed “serious concern over the humanitarian consequences after recent violence in Burkina Faso that killed 45 people and drove more than 17,500 out of their homes,” spokesman Boris Cheshirkov, said.

He said over 4,400 people had fled to the eastern towns of Foutouri and Tankoualou after an attack on Monday on a village named Kodyel in which 25 people died.

In the north, some 10,200 people fled to Ouahigouya after attacks while in the Sahel region “over 3,200 people were recently displaced,” he said.

These people “urgently need food, shelter, drinking water and medical care,” UNHCR said.

Burkina Faso also hosts 20,000 refugees and asylum seekers from neighbouring Mali, which has been devastated by jihadist and rebel violence.

The US envoy for the Horn of Africa arrived in Sudan Friday for talks on Ethiopia’s controversial Nile dam and rising tensions over a fertile border region, Sudanese state media reported.

Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia have been locked in inconclusive talks over the filling and operation of the huge hydro-power dam since Addis Ababa broke ground on it in 2011.

Cairo views the dam as an existential threat to its water supply, while Khartoum fears its own dams would be harmed if Ethiopia fills the reservoir without a deal.

Addis Ababa insists the barrage is indispensable for its development.

Sudanese Foreign Minister Mariam al-Sadiq al-Mahdi met US envoy Jeffrey Feltman at the airport in Khartoum, according to an AFP correspondent.

Feltman is expected to meet with head of state Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and other senior Sudanese officials on his two-day visit, official news agency SUNA said.

“The talks will tackle the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and the border tensions between Sudan and Ethiopia,” it added.

Feltman’s visit comes as part of a regional tour that also takes in Egypt, Eritrea and Ethiopia, according to the US State Department.

Ethiopia, which announced last July it had completed its first-year filling target for the dam, has said it would proceed with the second stage regardless of whether an agreement is in place.

US and European Union observers have attended multiple rounds of negotiations between the three countries that have so far failed to produce a binding deal.

Tensions over the dam come amid souring relations between Sudan and Ethiopia over Al-Fashaqa, a fertile border region where Ethiopian farmers have long cultivated fertile land claimed by Sudan.

Khartoum and Addis Ababa have been locked in a tense war of words over the region, trading accusations of violence and territorial violations in the area.