Nearly 20,000 Somalis have fled capital so far this month, UN reports
Nearly 20,000 people have been uprooted from their homes in the Somali capital by renewed clashes between the forces of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and opposition groups since the start of February, the United Nations refugee agency reported today.
Earlier this week, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) expressed its alarm at the toll the fighting has taken on civilians, with at least 50 reportedly having been killed and over 100 others injured.
Over half of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) have managed to escape Mogadishu, while others are stranded in relatively safer areas of the capital.
The agency started distributing non-food items – blankets, plastic sheeting, sleeping mats and kitchen sets – to 18,000 uprooted people in villages surrounding the town of Dhuusamarreeb, in central Somalia, where close to 30,000 people were forced from their homes by violence at the end of last month.
Earlier this week, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia Mark Bowden expressed grave concern at the latest surge in clashes in Mogadishu, noting that “civilians continue to bear the brunt of conflict and insecurity in the country.”
The worst of the latest fighting between Government forces and al-Shabaab militiamen is reported to have occurred on 10 February, when 24 people died and nearly 160 others had to be hospitalized with war-related injuries.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has revised upwards the number of people it is assisting from 2.5 million to 2.8 million, but is slightly reducing the volume of food distributions based on improving assessments of the overall food security situation in the impoverished Horn of Africa nation.
For its part, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is working with the Ministry of Health in the semi-autonomous Puntland region on an immunization scheme for 3,200 children under the age of one in the town of Bossaso.
It is also providing plumpy nut, a ready-to-eat formula to prevent acute malnutrition of vulnerable children, to over 300 children in 10 sites, including settlements for IDPs in Bossaso.