UN stepping up aid as new fighting displaces at least 15,000 from Somali capital

Aid agencies in Somalia are scaling up their efforts to assist some 15,000 people uprooted by the recent fighting in Mogadishu, which has reportedly killed 80 civilians and wounded hundreds more and is some of the worst violence to hit the Somali capital in over a year and a half, the United Nations said today.

Those fleeing the fresh clashes this week between Islamic insurgents and Government forces bring the total number of people uprooted so far this year in Mogadishu to 160,000, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

“This week’s fighting in Mogadishu, described by witnesses as the worst since the beginning of the latest insurgency in February 2007, has forced at least 15, 000 people from their homes,” UNHCR spokesperson Ron Redmond told reporters in Geneva.

UNHCR, which is working to provide shelter materials for those that have fled, reported that almost half of the newly displaced have moved to safer parts of Mogadishu, while most of the others fled west towards the Somali town of Afgooye, an area already jammed with an estimated 350,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs).

Meanwhile, the agency said that about 5,000 Somali refugees have been arriving every month at the Dadaab refugee camp in north-eastern Kenya, some 80 kilometres from the border with Somalia, bringing the population in the camp to over 215,000.

Despite the insecurity in the capital of the strife-torn nation, humanitarian agencies are scaling up their response to assist those affected.

“We are managing to get aid to those who desperately need it. We have stepped up response for those who have been uprooted by the violence in the past few days and there is no break in ongoing assistance programmes,” said the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, Mark Bowden.

“The renewed fighting in Mogadishu over the weekend worsens an already desperate and deteriorating humanitarian situation in Somalia. A huge proportion of the population is in dire need of assistance.”

Those displaced since the weekend are receiving food aid along the Afgooye corridor and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) is currently transporting more food to the outskirts of Mogadishu. Health facilities in the capital have also been supplied with drugs and supplies.

In addition, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and its partners will distribute non-food items to 8,000 families in need. The agency also plans to continue to the ongoing blanket supplementary feeding programme for 10,000 children under five in and around Mogadishu and the surrounding IDP camps.

The latest crisis comes as the Horn of Africa nation, which has not had a functioning government since 1991, is grappling with an already dire humanitarian situation owing to a combination of conflict and drought.

Some 3.2 million people in Somalia, or around 43 per cent of the population, are in urgent need of food and other humanitarian assistance.

The latest violence comes just weeks after the signing of a UN-brokered peace deal between the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the rebel Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS) aimed at ending the fighting.