Fighting displaces 1.55m

2009-09-08 08:22

Mogadishu - Four months of intense fighting in Mogadishu have taken the total number of displaced Somalis to 1.55 million, the UN' refugee agency said on Monday.

The figure includes more than 250 000 that have been displaced since renewed violence rocked the city in early May, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement.

"The number of internally displaced people living in Somalia is now over 1.5 million," it said.

"The main reason for the increase of the overall number of displaced (from 1.3 million in the first quarter of 2009) is the renewed violence in Mogadishu that displaced over a quarter of a million people since May 7," it said.

On May 7, two extremist insurgent groups launched a military offensive in the capital and parts of central and southern Somalia in an attempt to topple Somalia's internationally backed president, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.

Hundreds of civilians have also been killed in the fighting, which often involves mortar battles over residential areas pitting insurgents against government troops and AU peacekeepers.

The UNHCR said that the rate of displacement has decreased since the first weeks of the offensive but added that 95 000 people were nevertheless forced to flee their homes over the past two months.

Most of the displaced flee westwards to Afgoye, which was once a small town 30km from Mogadishu but has become a sprawling cluster of makeshift shelters home to more than half a million.

According to the UN, Somalia is currently experiencing its worst humanitarian crisis in 18 years of almost uninterrupted civil strife and one of the world's worst ongoing humanitarian tragedies.

- SAPA