U.N.: MORE THAN 230 CIVILIANS KILLED IN SOMALIA IN RECENT WEEKS
Baku, September 7 (AZERTAC). More than 230 civilians in Somalia`s capital of Mogadishu have died in fighting over the past two weeks between Somali transitional government forces and Al-Shabaab militants, the U.N. refugee agency said on Tuesday.
At least 400 people have been wounded and 23,000 displaced in the latest violence. So far this year, more than 200,000 civilians are believed to have fled their homes in the capital
"People who have been able to reach northern Somalia and neighbouring countries are mostly arriving on foot and by small buses and traveling without shelter. They tell our staff that the streets of Mogadishu are completely deserted and that people are too afraid to leave their houses. In these dangerous and difficult conditions aid distributions are becoming rare and those who venture out are risking their lives," the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said.
The agency said people are leaving the capital for other parts of Somalia, such as Puntland, or to the neighboring countries of Ethiopia and Kenya, and across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen.
Somalia generates the largest number of refugees in the world after Afghanistan and Iraq, the agency said. At the end of August, there were more than 614,000 Somali refugees and over 1.4 million people displaced within the country.
"The collapse of the state, spiraling violence and anarchy, compounded by poverty, has led to one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world and unacceptable suffering of the civilian population," the agency said.
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