Saturday, July 07, 2007
NAIROBI, (Xinhua) -- Escalating violence in Mogadishu in the past week has forced about 7,000 people to flee the Somali capital, Mogadishu, the United Nations humanitarian agency said on Saturday.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in its update that aid agencies' efforts to deliver aid are being thwarted by the deteriorating security situation in Somalia, where hundreds of thousands of people affected by violence in and around the capital city of Mogadishu face a dire humanitarian situation.
"About 7,000 people have fled Mogadishu in the last week due to insecurity and sporadic violence," OCHA said in a statement issued in Nairobi.
There has been heavy fighting in the war-infested Mogadishu between the Ethiopian-backed transitional government forces and local insurgents.
An extensive operation to confiscate weapons in the city in house-to-house searches has been under way since late April, when the transitional government forces drove insurgents from the northern suburbs.
Ethiopian soldiers have been in Somalia since December, when they helped oust an Islamist group that had taken control of the capital and surrounding areas.
OCHA said that access to areas around Mogadishu and key airstrips in southern and central Somalia is essential to deliver much-needed supplies such as food and water to avert a crisis.
"With people returning to Mogadishu while at the same time others are leaving, it is extremely difficult to estimate the total number of IDPs throughout Somalia," OCHA said.
"However, 404,000 IDPs have left Mogadishu since Feb. 1 and nearly 125,000 have returned. In addition to IDPs fleeing insecurity, the UNHCR Population Movement Tracking reports indicate that over 2,500 residents and IDPs have been evicted from their homes in public buildings since June 1."
Most of those unwilling to return to Mogadishu cite continuing insecurity at a time when daily acts of violence are rising despite claims by the transitional government that it has defeated insurgent forces.
Source: Xinhua, July 07, 2007